tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-81256217276033152942024-03-20T14:42:09.573-07:00The Unlonely ProjectIn which a relationship junkie tries to save herself and her life by learning to be alone.Jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17339022031680762090noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8125621727603315294.post-47913326929104374102011-12-15T13:34:00.000-08:002011-12-15T13:34:04.816-08:00Steps 9 and 10: A Catch Up BlogWow, I gave you guys a heck of a break there, didn’t I? It was really unfortunate timing, too, because I introduced to you the idea of there being a guy in my life, insisted I was going to continue with the Project anyway, and then quite suddenly I stopped blogging. I appear another unfortunate sacrifice to the Co-Dependency Gods. “She was all gung-ho about being more independent… until she didn’t have to be anymore.”<br />
<br />
The truth is that my independence has been undermined, but not by any relationship. Well, not any relationship with a man, that is. Back in early September, when the school year started, my custody arrangement with my kids changed. I went from having them week on-week off, to having them all the time except every other weekend. My free-time to do not only my writing but my laundry, my dishes, even shaving my damn legs, has been cut down to nothing. When I DO have time off from them, I use it catching up with those poor cast aside souls that are unfortunate enough to call me their friend (“Do I know you? You look vaguely familiar. I think you used to answer my texts some ages ago?”). I’m in a constant state of running from work to hockey practice to the dishwasher and back to work and it is exhausting. If I do ever get those spare moments all alone, I haven’t the mental capacity to write. My life has wrung me dry of all inspiration. <br />
<br />
But here I am, finally insistent on putting words to the page. They must be somewhat spare, and hurried, but at least they will exist.<br />
<br />
October 1st I made my trek to Portland. It’s a four hour drive from where I live and I made it with no music. The purpose of this wasn’t just to do it alone, it was to learn to enjoy my own company. If I stuffed earbuds in it would be the equivalent of forcing your kid to go play outside, but then letting him take his Gameboy. Besides, at that point I had a lot on my plate, a lot on my mind, and I needed the time to let my thoughts meander through some sort of unconscious resolution process. It took about an hour before my brain turned off mindless chatter mode. You know, that squirrel-like internal conversation that only gets as deep as “I wonder if I turned off the stove, when I get back I need to remember to wash my work slacks, I wonder if I need to take the cat to the vet?” An irritating buzz of useless words. I forced some deep breaths, I steadied my mind on a point ahead on the road, and I focused on the nothing.<br />
<br />
I remember distinctly the first thought that spilled out of my brain when I allowed it free reign again. It won’t surprise you at all. It was, “See how broken you are? You’re so fucked up you have to force yourself through painstaking effort to be even somewhat normal. You’re driving 4 hours, alone, just to accomplish something everyone else can do without even trying. The moment you let your guard down, you’ll be back to nothing again.” I remember tightening my grip on the steering wheel, grinding my teeth a little, and saying aloud with a sigh: “Awesome.” There’s just something about knowing you have 7 more hours of grueling self hatred ahead of you that makes you want to drive into oncoming traffic, yanno?<br />
<br />
I left the house feeling empowered and hopeful, but by the time I reached Portland I had been knocked down a few pegs by my internal dialog. I was quiet as I rolled into town and found a place to park. Half my mind was laying quietly in the corner, fatigued from the struggle and beaten into submission. The other half stood tall, a sinister smile on its face, the smoke from its cigar covering my brain in a haze of sadness I couldn’t seem to escape.<br />
<br />
I so much want to tell you that I walked the beautiful city, and that the second half of the game brought the underdog of my happiness back from defeat and that I stood triumphant upon my return home. I want to tell you that, but I can’t. I walked that beautiful city for about 4 hours on a cloudy day. I had some locally made ice cream, I had seafood pasta for lunch at a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant, I had some VooDoo Donuts. What I didn’t have was an epiphany that I was a-okay just the way I am. The drive home was long and arduous and when I pulled into my driveway I felt no greater than when I had set out. I didn’t mourn the time alone, I never felt lonely, so in that way it was a victory. I just felt… like a fuck up. <br />
<br />
How do I explain this? Let’s try it this way: When I was pregnant, I gained 60 pounds with each of my kids. I had hovered at a size 10 and about 140 pounds since I was 18, but I ballooned to a size 22, weighing about 210. When my youngest was 6 months old, I hit the gym and starting watching what I ate and exercised portion control and it took me about 9 months to get back down to 150 pounds (which is where I hovered until my break up with Ben in April). I lost 60 pounds in 9 months, which sounds amazing, and it IS amazing. I earned being healthy and attractive, and that’s great. But at about month 4, when I had lost roughly 30 lbs but was still 30 lbs overweight? I was getting there, but I was still fat. When I looked at myself in the mirror, I saw the progress, but I still saw something I didn’t like. I was still unhealthy. My trip to Portland felt like a reminder that while I’m making great progress, and I’ve come a long way, I’m still a fuck up. I have to fix something, because it’s broken. I’m broken.<br />
<br />
---<br />
<br />
Two weeks later – it was a completely different story. On October 15th I made my way to Seattle, to Century Link field, and watched the Seattle Sounders FC defeat the San Jose Earthquakes in goalie Kasey Keller’s last regular season football match. I arrived well ahead of the game time at Occidental Park to walk with the hundreds of other people to the field. I indulged in all sorts of free goodies, including t-shirts and arm bands. I won a gift certificate to the team store and got a t-shirt and jacket to go with my scarves. When I got to my seat (it was a great seat, only 3 rows back from the field, just one section down from the Brougham End), I asked someone to take my picture. They were happy to oblige but asked if I was alone and why. I can’t remember if I really told them why or if I gave them a line about my boyfriend dumping me. All I know is I got a beer out of it. <br />
<br />
It was a record crowd that night. Almost 65,000 people made it to the field to watch Kasey make one astounding save after another, and to watch our boys come back from a sure defeat to a win in the last 20 minutes of the match. I credit Rosales. Drew Carey was there. I miss when he was fat. <br />
<br />
Everyone was sucked into the excitement of the match. Screaming, jumping, chanting. I didn’t feel alone there, because I was just part of a collective voice that rang deafeningly through the stadium. I didn’t come with a date, but I felt for a little while like it was okay because I was a part of a whole. <br />
<br />
I parked under the Alaskan Way viaduct, and if you know anything about Seattle then you know that place is creeptastic after dark. You might as well just wear a mug me sign if you’re going to be down there alone. I walked by a few bars, with people flooding in and out of their doors. Just before I would turn the corner to begin my trek under the viaduct, I stopped and spoke to 2 large, burly gentlemen waiting to get into one of them. They seemed jovial enough. They were smiling and seemed pretty harmless. I asked if they would be so kind as to walk me to my car. I admit I felt odd, but they agreed without skipping a beat. “Yah, absolutely!” they said and we began on our way. We exchanged names, where we were from, talked about how incredible the game had been, how glad we were to be a part of Kasey’s tribute. As we approached my car, I pointed it out from a distance and one of them said, “Oh, I’m glad we walked you down.” when they saw the creepy homeless guy camped out not 10 feet from it. They walked me right to the door and didn’t step foot away until I had buckled up and started the engine. I thanked them tremendously and was safely on my way.<br />
<br />
A hardcore, independent feminist might see what I did as weakness. I’m not being independent, I’m still relying on a man, right? I disagree. Those men were resources, weapons if you will. It was a boulder that I was physically unable to move on my own. Those men were the stick, and the fulcrum; the tools I needed to get the job done considering my very real limitations. I didn’t need to be in a relationship to be safe, I just needed to be smart about it. Not being in a relationship, after all, doesn’t mean being entirely alone. We still have family, and friends. We still have support systems. I enjoyed being put in a situation in which I had to take what I was given – a single ticket to a football game – and turn it into fun night without that socially lubricating alcohol that is known as a date. I’m not Bear Grylls, dropped in the middle of nowhere with but a pair of hiking shoes and a penchant for eating grubs. I am similar though. I was dropped in the middle of an inherently social situation with but a green and blue scarf and a penchant for drawing people in – a gift of gab if you will. <br />
<br />
There’s something to be said for the confidence it gives you to know you can take what you are given and make something great with it. The Italians call it “l’arte d’arrangiarsi”: the art of making something out of nothing. I’ll remember that I walked into that night with nothing, and from the nothing I made something worth remembering. That’s what the Project is about, right? Taking a life that can sometimes feel empty, and without that ingredient of “love”, making it full, making it substantial, making it a life that was worth living.<br />
<br />
---<br />
<br />
Two weeks after that game, Chris came to visit for the first time. After 10 days, he went back home. We are in love, definitely. However, he is still (for now) 5,000 miles away. The Project continues. I have more to post. I will return.Jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17339022031680762090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8125621727603315294.post-61268718863958023642011-10-09T21:39:00.000-07:002011-10-11T08:23:22.153-07:00Interlude: Admitting Defeat<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I should be blogging my trip to Portland. I took it. Eventually I’ll get it on the page. But for the last couple of weeks something’s been eating at me and I’ve had a hell of a time trying to articulate it, and I think I finally can, so I’d like to just put it out there.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">One of the reasons I started the Project as a purely anonymous pursuit was that I didn’t want to be getting comments from the peanut gallery that is my real life. The people I see on a daily or weekly basis and have a constant line of communication with. However, the more encouragement I got when discussing outside of the blog what I was doing, the more I thought it would be okay. I opened it up to a few people. I’m happy to say that while I don’t have a huge number of readers, that the readers I don’t know outweigh the ones I do, but it is still true that my closest friends read along with my attempts here.</span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">These friends have also been along for the developing relationship between myself and the man I spoke about <a href="http://theunlonelyproject.blogspot.com/2011/08/interlude-in-name-of-absolute.html">here</a>. Chris lives in London, 4,772 miles from where I live. I met him online quite by accident.</span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">That’s right, I said “relationship”.</span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The peanut gallery has had a lot of things to say about what I’m doing, about both Chris and the Project. The reason I publicized the blog was to develop a sense of accountability for my actions, so I welcome the feedback, but now I’m stuck in a conundrum of sorts, and it’s creating an internal conflict that is keeping me up at night. </span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You see, I am trapped on the one side by people who tease me for thinking of Chris as a relationship. I’ve never met Chris in person, he lives thousands of miles away, and he and I have grown very, very close. It can’t be *real*, of course, it can’t be substantial. How could it be? We’ve never been in the same room together. All we have is our hours of days of weeks of months of video-chats, our emails, our letters, the packages we’ve sent; and all of it can be discounted because the rest of it can boiled down to the simplest of terms: if there is no physical relationship, there is no relationship. Eyebrows raised, heads shaken. We’re ridiculous nerds.</span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">More often than not, I am simply humored in regards to him, as though I am a teenager and he is a passing phase that I’ll grow out of in a couple of months when a “real” relationship comes along. I’ve heard it all. That he just seems romantic and exciting because he’s from another country, has an accent, and when that wears off so will my feelings. That everyone *seems* to have a lot in common in the beginning, and that I’m over-exaggerating the connection because I’m so desperate to be paired. And despite the many times I’ve rejected men with money, even while struggling and on welfare, because I knew I would never fall in love with them and be intimately connected with them, it has been insinuated that I just want to hurry up and settle down because I’m sick of being broke. I’m not here to argue against these points, and I won’t plead my case. You either trust my judgment or you don’t. All I’m doing is bringing you to my next point:</span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I find it ironic to be trapped on the other side by the same people who are implying that our relationship isn’t “real” reminding me that being in a relationship means that I’ve failed yet again. The relationship isn’t real, but none-the-less it constitutes a failure. </span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Well, I’d agree with that second bit. I have failed. The point of the Project was one thing: stay single for 6 months. I didn’t do this.</span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I don’t know how long I managed it, really. I remember reaching 3 months and saying out loud to myself “This is the longest I have been single since I was fifteen years old.” I was proud. To be honest, I’ve been proud of myself quite a bit, even once my relationship with Chris became more serious, because I still felt like I was making progress. Something happened recently that wiped that smug pride off of my face, though. </span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’ll start by saying that my boss is a terrible judge of appropriateness. A carrier rep came in recently and despite having told my boss on multiple occasions not to discuss the Project, or in fact my personal relationships (he’s fallen into the trap of “not shutting the hell up” twice previously) with anyone, he did so anyway. The rep went on to agree with my boss that I was in fact “in a relationship”, and that I had in fact failed at the Project and may as well abandon it. Neither stopped for a moment to consider that perhaps I would be sensitive about any of it; that perhaps I would be hurt by the implication that I had yet again failed miserably. In fact they got a good laugh out of it, while I tried to smile politely and take it in good humor. The rep even went so far as to ask me how sexuality factored into my online delusion – what was I showing this guy during our video-chats, anyway? Harharhar. It’s all a joke.</span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I went home that night and cried. I told Chris what had happened and shook my head in defeat. I told him that our relationship, one of love, support, tenderness and understanding, was just another miserable failure on my part. I was just repeating the same patterns, falling into the same traps. I had somehow ended up not only in another relationship, but in a relationship whose only ending can be marriage if he is to live in the same country as me. I had not only gone back to what I was comfortable with, I was going to take it further and faster than any relationship in my past. It screamed rebound, didn’t it?</span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It had all made sense as it was happening. I hadn’t gone searching for Chris, he had simply appeared. I hadn’t been seeking out a relationship, I had slowly and somehow effortless just woken up in one. At some point, with no suddenness whatsoever, I had woken up one day in love. I didn’t ask for it, I didn’t aspire to it. I had met a person with like interests who I wanted to talk to. I talked to him more, uncovered more about him that I could understand and relate to. One day I realized I missed him when he wasn’t there, and the next day he was the first thing I thought of when I woke up. I didn’t *try* to fall in love with him, I didn’t set out to be in love. After days and weeks and hours and hours of long conversations and communications and face to face talks long into the night, I was staring into the face not of a stranger on another continent, but of a kindred soul that I could no longer imagine not having in my life. Do with that what you will, I suppose.</span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> You can imagine Chris’ reaction to being told that a relationship he held so close was naught but a failure. I can’t imagine the hurt I inflicted by suggesting that to him. The poor thing, in his hurt, did nothing but try to comfort *me*, which looking back on it is horrible. Trying to remind me that our relationship is sweet, and special, and loving; that it is in fact real despite naysayers voicing to the contrary. How difficult that must have been considering there had to be some voice of doubt planted in his mind at that point – am I just another in a long line of her mistakes? Is the way she feels for me just another grasp at not being alone anymore? </span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Perhaps the Project is just a farce now. It probably is. After all, the whole point was for me to stay single for just 6 short months, and I didn’t do it. I fell short. I don’t know how far I made it because I’m not really sure what day it was that I realized I was in love with Chris. I’m not sure when we rounded that corner from friends to sweethearts. In the end, it doesn’t matter, does it? I didn’t achieve what I set out to achieve. The rest is just grasping at straws – at weak rationalizations. </span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Still, I believe I’ve gained a lot from the Project none-the-less. I’ve come so far since June. I don’t even notice the time I’m alone in my house anymore. I don’t notice my being alone at restaurants. I don’t wrestle with my independence the way that I once did. I feel a value in myself that I didn’t really have a grasp on before. I’m going to keep doing the Steps, even if they’re a lie, because even if I’ve failed in the war, I believe I can still win some of these battles. </span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I publicized the Project to gain some accountability, but it didn’t really work. I didn’t follow through, and now the feedback I’m getting is to call it a loss and I don’t think I’ll listen to that either. I don’t think I’ll quit. And I don’t think I’ll call it a loss, for that matter. I gained a lot in the journey, even if I never reached the destination. I am still building my ship, even if I already have a passenger. I hope he stays with me through the storms, but if he doesn’t, my ship will still be strong. It is my ship, and I am its captain.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
</div>Jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17339022031680762090noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8125621727603315294.post-91009388220268824362011-09-19T20:59:00.000-07:002011-09-19T20:59:58.055-07:00Interlude: A “Single” Caveat<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Dinner was going fine. The stir-fry wasn’t the best meal I’d ever made, but it was edible. The sugar snap peas were still crisp, the chicken was a bit bland but still moist. The rice was perfect. We were talking about our day. I looked over to see my son with his face buried in his plate, eating it like a dog. </span> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“James, use your fork. You can’t just eat by shoving your face into your plate, that’s rude.” It was said calmly, almost in passing because I knew he knew it wasn’t okay, and was positive he’d giggle and just stop. His actual reaction caught me off guard.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“FINE!” He yelled, throwing his fork down with force, tossing the food that was still stuck to it across the table. He then kicked the table leg, and sat back just as forcefully, crossing his arms in anger. For a moment my mouth hung agape. What had just happened?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Woah! What was that? You know you can’t eat like an animal, are you seriously going to throw a fit when I ask you to stop?” I was incredulous but still calm. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I said</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">fine!</i>” He said, this time with a tone of absolute venom. He spat the words at me. I was in awe. He had been perfectly normal since I’d picked him up at daycare an hour before. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">He was sent to the corner to consider how he should and should not speak to his mother, especially after she made a reasonable request such as “Don’t eat like a barnyard animal” and while there he proceeded to hit and kick the walls around him. When I told him to stop he yelled at me because “This is stupid!” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">How did my evening disintegrate so quickly? I fought almost 3 hours worth of traffic today, worked an 8 ½ hour day in which I barely took time to eat lunch, came home and put away the dishes while helping with homework and making dinner. I didn’t sleep enough last night, and I’m struggling with a lot of my own stresses (such as custody and child support problems with Rich, fights with friends brought on by senseless gossip, and suddenly my mouth has decided to fall apart and I’m in a bunch of stupid pain because of it). I need a break. I need to sit and read, cuddle with my kiddos, maybe zone out on some television for the first time in I don’t know how many months. Instead I’m fighting a battle I can’t even understand against a young man who couldn’t wrap his head around what I’m dealing with even if I told him about it – which I wouldn’t. I’m exhausted. I don’t have the emotional or mental resources necessary to cope with him… and yet I have no choice.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">As many dinners as I go to, or movies as I attend, no matter how comfortable I get with being on my own, there will never come a day that I won’t feel lonely while dealing with this. An evening like this is the very poster child for why single moms are desperate, co-dependent settlers. Eager to grasp onto anyone that will take them, no matter how ill fitting they might be for them, or for the task at hand. Nights like tonight are why my mom stayed with my step-dad long after the alcoholism took him over and he began to treat her daughter like a punching bag. I can separate myself from that desperation. I can feel a line within myself that I couldn’t feel before. I know the line is there because Ben came to me and asked me back, dripping promises of how well he’d treat my babies off his lips like so much honey, and I didn’t fall prey. I knew better. The line within me had been drawn and I knew I could do better. On one side is a life of mediocrity, settling for “at least I’m not scrambling anymore”. On the other side is striving, even if struggling, for a life of genuine happiness by holding out for something real for me AND my kids. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Knowing where the line is makes me feel stronger. Please don’t mistake what I’m saying here. The Project has caused me to go through massive shifts in my understanding of who I am and what I want. I feel like I’ve built a pretty strong foundation for myself in the last few months. I have a heavier grip on what I’m capable of. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Still… raising babies on my own? This will never be a Step. I cannot imagine going through a night like tonight and not feeling Lonely. I’m weary. I need a hug, and my hair petted. I need someone to do the dinner dishes while I sit with James and talk to him about why I wasn’t going to be able to allow that behavior in my house. I need to be tucked into bed early. Nights like tonight, I don’t feel like I’m doing justice to my role as Mom. I wonder if I’m doing right by these kids at all. Say what you will about it being my circumstances, about me doing the best in a shitty situation, about kids being resilient. Parenthood isn’t supposed to be a solitary pursuit. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">For as far as I’ve come, tonight I’m Lonely.</span></div>Jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17339022031680762090noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8125621727603315294.post-67080400915716749392011-09-18T13:03:00.000-07:002011-09-18T13:03:46.204-07:00Step 8: Slaying Dragons<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:RelyOnVML/> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/> <w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> <w:Word11KerningPairs/> <w:CachedColBalance/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhawB3MRwJ_-4vOYOwFkO0sAVpDTTN23-6irB0l1okULnmH9_4fprouz-9dE7CGSpHyQ-vnTjokDDA39_6pfJz0Qdjf72Oxli6NwOnkkuL29hGEkLP-kIgsQKrsM5jkZyGhN48GEnfG8CYZ/s1600/dragons.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhawB3MRwJ_-4vOYOwFkO0sAVpDTTN23-6irB0l1okULnmH9_4fprouz-9dE7CGSpHyQ-vnTjokDDA39_6pfJz0Qdjf72Oxli6NwOnkkuL29hGEkLP-kIgsQKrsM5jkZyGhN48GEnfG8CYZ/s400/dragons.jpg" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A dragon from Meridian Park</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>How it took me this long to write this entry, I’ll never know. The same day that I went to Tutta Bella for my dinner alone, I also did this step, but I’m just now writing it. Who knows? Rich changed the custody arrangement with the kids for the 4<sup>th</sup> time in 2 years, and I have them full time now. This leaves grievous little time for writing. Or anything, for that matter.<br />
<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal">As I said, I left Tutta Bella with but a taste awakened in me for ice cream. There was a simple and fast solution: just a few blocks away was one of the best ice cream places in the entirety of the world, Molly Moon’s Ice Cream. Molly Moon’s touts a lot of wonderful things. In addition to using only natural, organic ingredients in their ice cream, they also use only recycled, compostable materials in all of their bowls, cups AND spoons. I went to the original location in Wallingford (there are 4 in Seattle now), and waited in what is always a long line out the door of the tiny hole in the wall shop. Touting seasonal flavors such as huckleberry, they also had a chalkboard covered in their year round flavors which include not only stand-bys such as Vanilla Bean, Theo Chocolate and Strawberry, but also Starburst, Salted Caramel, Balsamic Strawberry, Honey Lavendar, and Ginger to name a few. My best friend had, instead of a wedding cake, an assortment of Molly Moon’s ice cream with a sundae bar. It’s THAT good. I opted for a large scoop of my favorite, Salted Caramel, and set out. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Several blocks away is a park I call the Storybook Park (it is actually called Meridian Park, and it was introduced to me by my friend Katie who I’ll speak about shortly. She was married there last summer). The playground area is themed with decorations from classic fairytales like Snow White, while also having quotes from books such as The Secret Garden and Where the Wild Things Are carved into walls here and there. It’s a sweet park with plenty of benches. The sun was beginning to set as I got there, so I found my bench, sat down with my ice cream and watched the sky begin to change colors. Despite the coming dark, there were a lot of children there still. It was still warm. I had been sitting quietly in my thoughts for about 10 minutes when a little girl came running up to my bench and stared at me. I smiled and said hello. She smiled back and just stared for a bit. I wasn’t uncomfortable, this is just what kids do. I stared back. She was wearing pink pajamas with white polka dots. They were the zippered, one-piece pajamas. They probably had feet on them, but I couldn’t see because she was wearing red galoshes with polka dots of all different colors. The pajamas were filthy from playing in the wood chips.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Are you having ice cream?” she asked. I nodded.</div><div class="MsoNormal">“I am, this is my dessert.”</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Did you get it at Molly Moon?”</div><div class="MsoNormal">“I did, have you been there?”</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Yes, I get honey lavender.”</div><div class="MsoNormal">“That’s a very adventurous flavor. Do you get to go there a lot?” </div><div class="MsoNormal">She nodded. “In the summer we do, but not in the winter because then it’s cold.” </div><div class="MsoNormal">“Yes, winter is more for hot chocolate and warm cider, isn’t it?” She nodded again. “You must like polka dots. You have them on your outfit and your shoes.”</div><div class="MsoNormal">“They aren’t shoes, they’re galoshes.”</div><div class="MsoNormal">“That’s true, they are galoshes.”</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Why are you sitting here by yourself?”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I paused for a bit longer than I should have, but she seemed happy to wait. She was leaned against the bench very near to me now, wiggling a bit but not impatient. The answer I gave surprised me a little:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Because sometimes it’s better to do things by yourself than to do them with someone you don’t want to be around just so you won’t be alone.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I’m not really sure where that came from, I’ll be honest. If it sounds well thought out at all, let me assure you that it wasn’t. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">She nodded, though I’m not sure she understood. I expected her to take off back to the playground after such a confusing, cryptic answer to a somewhat straight forward question, but she didn’t. She climbed up onto the bench and sat beside me. I looked around for her parent, caught the eye of her dad, who was pushing a sibling on a swing, and we nodded at one another in that parent language in which a single nod means “Is she bothering you?” and the returned nod means “No, she’s fine.” Her feet were dangling off the edge. We sat in silence for a bit, she and I. The sun set was turning the sky rich shades of orange and pink now. The sun itself was beneath the tree line now, but I imagined that could I see it it would have been that deep, hot pink color I love so much. I turned again to my temporary companion.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Are you going to go to school in September?” She looked about right for Kindergarten. As I figured, she nodded. She had long, curly blonde hair. She pushed some of it out of her face, which was dirty from playing too. Everything about this kid made me smile. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“I’m going to be in Kindergarten.” She reiterated. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Are you excited?” I asked. Again, she nodded. “Were you in pre-school last year?” She nodded again, then launched into a story about a boy in her class who was evidently quite rude as one time when she was on the playground with him she was playing with another girl and the boy came up and pushed her down for no reason at all and when she told the teacher the teacher did nothing, which seems really unfair to me. I communicated as much to her. She nodded, pleased with my empathy.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“I have to go slide down the slide now.” She said. I giggled a little and thanked her for her company as she ran away. I was finishing my ice cream now anyway. The dusk was casting a shadow over the grass and trees and people were beginning to leave. Soon I was alone and dusk was turning to dark. My empty cup sat beside me on the bench, my hands buried deep in the kangaroo pocket of my hoodie. I continued to watch where not long ago the sun had been setting the sky on fire. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">A little over a year ago, it must have been about May, my friend Katie and I had sat on this bench together and had ice cream from Molly Moon’s. Ben and I were new, and Katie was a very old friend of ours from high school, and she was one of the first people I had told that we were beginning to see one another. Her reaction that day on the bench was a gasp of pleasure, not only that we were together, but because the story was such a romantic one. People said that a lot, how Ben and I had this epic love story, a fairytale with this happy ending lurking so close around the corner. Ships passing in the night, love lingering over decades, etc. A hundred years seems to have passed since that day here with Katie, and the fairytale is long since over. To my left, a wrought iron fence adorned with apples (perhaps poisoned?) and dragons. To my right, the iron likeness of a candy house perched atop a stone pillar. I, and people like Katie, had turned Ben into my knight on a white horse, whether he wanted to play that part or not. When the illusion shattered, I suffered not just the broken heart, but the shattering of an entire love story that I had allowed to be woven in my mind. When we’re young, we are all princesses waiting to be rescued. How wonderful it seemed to be living that as truth, to have someone who wants to carry you away from it all and protect you from the dragons of life. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I allowed myself to forget something very important: I’m not a princess, and this isn’t a fairy tale. I’m a 32 year old woman with two kids living in a duplex next to the highway, and this is real life with all its beautiful ugliness. No one is going to rescue me from anything, and I can’t even rescue myself. All we can do is live each day as it is, fight to succeed but learn to stand up and move on when we fail. I can live in the simple pleasure that while I spent that night alone, at least I didn’t spend it with someone I didn’t want to be with or who didn’t deserve to be with me. That is its own shining armor, I suppose. A heavy shield between myself and the lonely, distressed damsel I used to be. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">That’s not to say that love stories don’t exist, that they don’t unravel before your very eyes and cast light onto a future that stretches far into the distance. It’s only to say that I will remain anchored in reality, anchored to what I truly am, so that come what may I will have my feet planted in a foundation in which I’ll always be okay. Charming princes may come and go, and I do hope for that happily ever after, but I will ever be aware that at a moment’s notice, by heartbreak or death, life could rob me of him. I should always be prepared to happily spend a long sunset at the park alone with my favorite ice cream.</div><div class="MsoNormal"> </div><div class="MsoNormal">Saying it like that, it doesn’t sound like such a terrible ending does it? “And she and the ice cream lived happily ever after”?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">*Sigh* Now my mouth is watering.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>Jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17339022031680762090noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8125621727603315294.post-30454891660418439652011-09-08T20:04:00.000-07:002011-09-08T20:04:02.494-07:00Step Seven: Fooding<div class="MsoNormal"> </div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTMdIsPWfZyZfAIqKRqHv8O6V0ZQ1BnU2TC4gxrTAuLk1sI2Gh9bf-I5V0WuuPvy-akDYfG8vnHss2qrNEDnMEqcaw1gsenE_4ipdAMKIf5q7tueIp4FRFerr1_B4etVwOq3RZGiUXZNDX/s1600/IMG_1807.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTMdIsPWfZyZfAIqKRqHv8O6V0ZQ1BnU2TC4gxrTAuLk1sI2Gh9bf-I5V0WuuPvy-akDYfG8vnHss2qrNEDnMEqcaw1gsenE_4ipdAMKIf5q7tueIp4FRFerr1_B4etVwOq3RZGiUXZNDX/s320/IMG_1807.JPG" width="320" /></a>I didn’t know until about 3 months ago that there was such a thing as a “foodie”. Have you guys heard of this? People who just love the hell out of food. They seek out good food, they learn to make good food. They see food as a kind of art, but in my opinion, food is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">better </i>than art. Food affects more senses than art can. I mean, you can see art, obviously. Sometimes you can touch art, sometimes you can even smell it – paint and clay, they have a smell to them that permeates the senses. These added senses are why we art lovers yearn to go to the museum and could never be completely satisfied by just looking at pictures of a sculpture or painting online or in a book. If you classify music as art (which I do), then of course you can hear it too. But food can be beautiful, and you can smell it, and get your fingers dirty in it, sometimes you can hear it cooking, but above all you do one thing with food you can’t do with art – you can consume it. You can taste it, and it fills not only your senses, and it feeds not only your soul, it fills your stomach and nourishes your body. Food is better than art because you can experience it on every possible base level, and then it literally becomes a part of you. Of your skin, of your hair, of your fingernails and blood. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In case you can’t tell from all this, I am evidently a foodie. So I wasn’t terribly intimidated by the prospect of going to dinner alone. I mean, when I first laid out the Steps all those months ago, it seemed somewhat ridiculous. Of all the Steps, dinner alone has come second only to going dancing alone as the Sep most commented on by others. “I could never do that alone.” “You’re so brave, isn’t that going to be weird?” But months have passed, and the Steps have come quickly, and it wasn’t so scary to me when I went on Monday. In fact, I’ll admit… some of the Steps sound downright boring to me now that I’ve tasted more uncomfortable fodder. Riding the bus just doesn’t seem all that impressive anymore. It doesn’t seem scary or awkward. I’m not saying I’m not going to do it – it’s a Step and I have to take it. I’m just saying… I’m not sure what I’m going to write about it when I’m done. I’ll probably write more about the weirdos on the bus than my actual reaction to any of it, because I don’t think my reaction will be all that formidable. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And I have to say that of the 2 (that’s right, I said two) steps I tackled on Monday, neither was difficult. Not the way I had expected them to be. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQlyqUO4dUFuB3qjrcYf9JbxSE15-xMFLb2qHFFd3CADwXUNhgIbgsL8fQtdqMG0qd4oqpBwu6xaLJ1Xztuw90bLPYnkGAK3TbMPEPXnHlvZG9-TwRBsupAdjTbZ4K-GMIA1rA2vzKanTn/s1600/IMG_1806.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGrMSvMaC4PZo6m9nZ7uHbyMazgYFysMFQJ28JlGkPYQc5K2R8Xb-mhOmv1TwpcJRwjbWttcA1jH3Z4eb99rQNTft_B9-lPN2zKZJxo-xX0yToRDqrhI1SdTc7nyjxtnV4a6xAExBQN6AC/s1600/IMG_1804.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGrMSvMaC4PZo6m9nZ7uHbyMazgYFysMFQJ28JlGkPYQc5K2R8Xb-mhOmv1TwpcJRwjbWttcA1jH3Z4eb99rQNTft_B9-lPN2zKZJxo-xX0yToRDqrhI1SdTc7nyjxtnV4a6xAExBQN6AC/s320/IMG_1804.JPG" width="240" /></a>I went to Tutta Bella in the Wallingford district of Seattle. Tutta Bella does amazing authentic pizza and calzones. They also do pasta and salads. If you’re in the area, well worth the stop. There are 4 in the area to choose from. I walked to reception with confidence. As had happened at the sushi place, the hostess stared blankly at me, searching for the polite way to say “How many?” when it was obvious there was probably only 1. As with the last hostess, I saved her the trouble by piping up “Just me!” with a hearty smile. I had been hung over the day before, I had barely eaten, so I was starving and excited. I was seated right away. There was only one of me, so they didn’t waste a table with a view on me. I got stuck next to a pillar with an electrical outlet next to my seat. That was okay, I wasn’t here to be pampered. I was here for food. The waiter approached and I had already downed my entire glass of water. Have I mentioned I was hungover? I was still dehydrated and that water tasted like rainbows and happiness. You could see he was just as uneasy as the hostess had been. He wanted to ask if I was waiting for someone, but wasn’t sure how. I saved him as I had his predecessor, “I think I’m ready to order already!” I said. He smiled and nodded. He wasn’t sure how to handle me. I’m sure he was partly irritated that I was rudely taking up a table for two (there were no tables for one, oddly) with only myself, cutting the bill and therefore his tip, cleanly in half. I stuck with my delicious water, then ordered the Salerno salad to start. Romaine lettuce, soft balls of mozzarella, halved cherry tomatoes, thin pairings of fennel, fresh basil and seedless slices of cucumber tossed in a yummy Dijon vinaigrette. The salads only come in a size for two, so the serving was massive. I smiled when they served it, nodded at a dash of milled pepper, then began. The sun was shining on my little plate of salad as I began, bringing out the rich greens, reds and whites. The vinaigrette was pungent and tart, adding a bite to the sweetness of the tomatoes and mingling with the mild taste of the mozzarella. I smiled with every bite, I savored it, I closed my eyes and focused on the flavors on my tongue. All things I couldn’t have done with company. I would have been eating this food in hurried bites between large helpings of conversation. Which is all well and good, but this salad was really amazing and I was glad there was no one there to shut up. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">There was a lengthy wait between when I finished my salad and when my pizza arrived. It was tempting to lean heavily on my phone to entertain me: Tweeting, Facebooking, checking e-mail and texting. I opted instead to open up to the room around me. To the lights hanging from the ceiling, the chattering of conversations, the crying of babies, the laughter. I wasn’t with someone, but I was still here. I was still a part of the collective breath of that place, part of what made that room alive right then. Perhaps I was quieter and more still than the rest, but I was no less substantial than the baby happily gumming a chunk of pizza crust, or the man in his 40’s gesturing wildly as he spoke. The sun came through the window, beginning to cast that deeper, more golden color that precedes the impending twilight, and it warmed my face. I was alone but I was not unhappy. I was Alone… but I was not Lonely.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQlyqUO4dUFuB3qjrcYf9JbxSE15-xMFLb2qHFFd3CADwXUNhgIbgsL8fQtdqMG0qd4oqpBwu6xaLJ1Xztuw90bLPYnkGAK3TbMPEPXnHlvZG9-TwRBsupAdjTbZ4K-GMIA1rA2vzKanTn/s1600/IMG_1806.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQlyqUO4dUFuB3qjrcYf9JbxSE15-xMFLb2qHFFd3CADwXUNhgIbgsL8fQtdqMG0qd4oqpBwu6xaLJ1Xztuw90bLPYnkGAK3TbMPEPXnHlvZG9-TwRBsupAdjTbZ4K-GMIA1rA2vzKanTn/s320/IMG_1806.JPG" width="320" /></a>The pizza I ordered arrived at last: the Prosciutto E Porcini. As the name implies, the main toppings are prosciutto and porcini mushrooms. It had no sauce, just a generous glaze of olive oil, along with healthy helpings of mozzarella and basil. The crust is rustic; thin and chewy. The lacy sheets of prosciutto and fat slices of mushroom were tossed haphazardly around the crust, making each bite different from the last. I slowly, methodically, and with a contentment I can’t describe, made my way through every slice of that 14” pizza.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I smiled, I laughed, I got my fingers into it. I could feel the color going back into my cheeks. I could feel myself filling out. I loved the way my stomach felt – full and happy. People at other tables had been watching me since I had sat down, perhaps wondering why I was alone, wondering where my date was, wondering why I was smiling at no one for no reason at all. I didn’t even notice them now. I let this food fill my senses. I let this food be the art that it is. I let it nourish my body and my heart the way only really good food can. I washed it down with water and serenity. I must have looked like Buddha with as much peace as I felt. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 346.5pt;">When the waiter came back, his response was a very genuine, “Wow!” Yes, I ate the whole pizza. I asked him for a box for the rest of my salad and without wasting breath on a separate sentence I asked him for a scoop of Nutella flavored gelato. I wasn’t going to be as big a tip as his larger tables, so I didn’t see much of that waiter. To some extent I understood, but at the same time it was a little disappointing to be a second class citizen because I was there on my own. I was literally not “worth” as much to him because of it. I didn’t let this damper my spirits at all as I slowly savored each bite of the gelato. It was nothing to write home about, really. Nice flavor, but not as creamy as I had expected, and the serving was much too small for my liking. Americanized gelato = glorified ice cream. Meh. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 346.5pt;">Before I left, only one moment struck me with any sort of sadness. It was like the gentlest pressing of a bruise with my mind’s thumb. As I stood to leave, I glanced for a moment an empty table across the room. It was but a month before Ben left that I sat there with him over a pizza we shared, on our way to a wedding. Things felt like they were going well then. We were in good spirits, hopeful, happy. He had held my hand over the table and thanked me for my patience with his ambivalence about my children. He promised me that he was coming round, that he looked forward to that time when we would all be under one roof. He told me he knew it was slow going, but that he was happy – really happy. “I’m not going anywhere.” He had said. I glanced only briefly at the chair where he had sat. I wondered at that moment. I wondered at how far I had come from that day. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">As quickly as the moment came, it passed. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I walked out of that restaurant and into a warm day that was preparing to settle into night. The air felt good on my face, my body was at peace, and my mind followed suit. I was not caged. My life is not a cage. I put my face toward the sun and the shadows fell behind me. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div>Jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17339022031680762090noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8125621727603315294.post-82697519157991919642011-08-24T20:27:00.000-07:002011-08-24T15:28:49.644-07:00Step 6: Conversations with God<span style="font-family: Calibri;">This last weekend my intent was to put a serious dent in the Project. This did not happen. In part because getting motivated was absolutely out of the question for some reason, but also because it was not hot but incredibly muggy and many of the activities I was considering doing would have had me hiking or riding a smelly bus or train in a puddle of my own sweat and I may never know why that didn’t sound super fun.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I did go out to eat by myself again, though, and each time it gets easier and more natural. I enjoy it, actually. I think I’ll keep doing it after I’m coupled as well. I did manage to tick at least one thing off my list: I went to church.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I want to preface this blog entry by saying this: I have been procrastinating on putting this up. I have been purposely avoiding it for 3 days. Embarking on it is a little nerve wracking for me and as I prepare to put the words on the page, my palms are sweating. Wish me luck, will you?<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">That having been said, onward.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I was raised Lutheran by my grandparents, who were active in my life. I don’t know how “Lutheran” is different from any other brand of Christian, but it is, evidently. They were devout Christians, and I went to church with them every time I spent the night at their house, which was every few weeks. I read the Bible enough to have favorite scriptures that I could recite. I don’t know that I ever fell in love with God, but I fell in love with religion. I fell in love with the power of faith and prayed earnestly with confidence that if I was a good person the Lord would protect me. I was a sheep and he was my Sheppard. I was raised this way from when my grandmother was “reborn”, when I was three. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">When I was twelve I was raped. Rather brutally, I’m afraid. After this happened, I never again returned to service. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“I am sending you out like sheep among wolves” Matthew 10:16<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Add to this the violent upbringing, the years of homelessness, and the ensuing depression and degrading relationships that resulted in one suicide attempt after another, and I’m sure you can imagine why perhaps I was not keen to be on speaking terms with God. He stayed on his side of the room, and I stayed on the other. We eyed one another awkwardly, but we never let on to anyone that we had known each other at one point. Most people had no idea that I knew he existed, and most people would assume from the life I was living that perhaps he had forgotten that I did as well. The death of my boyfriend, the miscarriages, the divorce. No, we were obviously mutually exclusive.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">When I set upon the Project and decided to go with the “church step”, I hadn’t thought much of it. It would be a beautiful place, I intended to go to St. Mark’s in Seattle, which is huge, gorgeous, and overlooks the city. It also allows gay and lesbian ministries, of which I am a big fan. I thought I would sneak into mass on Sunday, listen to the choir, bow my head when it was time to pray as I have politely done at so many Christmas dinners, and be on my way. However, as the day got nearer, I got more antsy about it. I got more nervous. I lashed out at the idea of dressing up just to show up at God’s house – who does this guy think he is? I shouldn’t have to show up on schedule wearing literally my “Sunday best”. You’re God. Part of the burden of being you is that you have to take me as I come, right? You get to bear down on my life with no mercy, an Esau to the world’s many Jacobs, and you have to take whatever I have become as a result of that. This mind set should have foreshadowed what was to come. It did not. I decided not to go to Mass. I went after last Mass, when the pews were emptier. I had no idea the emotional deluge that was to unfold.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">When I arrived at the church, my stomach churned. You’d think I was a witch or a Satanist the way I felt when I pulled up to park. I hesitated briefly before walking through the doors. A slight sigh of relief was uttered when I did not burst into flames upon entry. After some confusion, guilty shuffling, and uncertainty about whether this was “allowed”, I took the lead of some others seated among the pews, and I found a spot in a far back corner. <o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The church was vast and beautiful. I had never been in a place like this before. The Lutheran churches to which I was accustomed were small, contemporary things. Stepping into the expansive hall, you could hear the sounds of prayers still lingering in the air. The walls absolutely vibrated from the hymns sung so soon before I had arrived. Any venom I held before I swallowed into my belly and felt a great weight of religion sink upon me. Here I was. He saw me, I could tell. He was watching. He was waiting for me to make the first move.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I stared at the floor for a long time waiting for the words to come. I was sitting with my feet planted solidly about shoulder width apart. My elbows rested on my knees and I sat hunched with my hands hanging limply toward the ground. I must have looked exhausted. I carefully considered all the things I had lived through, the ways they had strengthened me and the ways they had made me scarred, jaded, self destructive and afraid. God was patient. When I finally raised my face toward the cross, tears were in my eyes and all I could muster was, “So… what happened there?”<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I thought at first I must seem insane to the other people in the pews, and there were several. Even speaking as quietly as I was, I was speaking out loud. I wanted to make sure he could hear me though, I didn’t intend to repeat myself. My self-consciousness was but a flickered hesitation. Where else are you expected to mumble things across desperate lips than at church?<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’m guessing my conversation with God lasted about an hour. It may have been more, I doubt it was less. We talked about all of it, all the hardship, all the joy. Tears spilling over my war-torn face I thanked him for the grace of my children, I begged him to see how grateful I was for my blessings. I also begged him to explain the rest of it to me.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” Romans 9:15<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">For so many years I drown. What life did I live, in what ways did I stumble so young, that warranted that I should know no mercy? The ugliest joke of all seems to be that so bruised am I now that at even the kindest touch I wince. When happiness or comfort descends, I have no knowledge of how to approach it, or nourish it. I have only ever learned how to cope with pain. To even the best of people, the chain is always on the door to my heart. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Which brings us full circle to the Project. I manage somehow to, with one arm, push away the idea of being alone, while with the other arm drawing in one destructive relationship after another. I feel such a need to be in relationships, but I am so fractured that I am only comfortable in those that tear me down. So afraid have I been to be alone with myself, that I have settled for the hardship and emotional ruin of a heartbreaking relationship over the idea of not being in one at all. I fear abandonment at the same time that I fear being loved. This, to me, seems like a fucking joke. And that’s what I told God, out loud, among the creaking pews, chandeliers and boney rafters. Yes, I said “fucking” in church. If he didn’t like the word, he wouldn’t have made it.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I was thrown headfirst into stormy waters when I was just a baby. Every time the sea would calm and I’d begin to tread water, he’d bring another storm until I was at last too tired to swim. Sometimes I would just want to sink. Too many times I tried to drown, but couldn’t even manage to do that right. I’d surface, the waves would break upon me, I’d choke and flail blindly with no site of land. My whole life was the fucking storm. I’d cling to a man like he was a branch floating on the water. Never enough to keep me afloat. A big enough storm would break and he’d be swept away or snap. You don’t let me die, you don’t let me live. So, what? I’m sick of sinking, and floating aimlessly, or waiting for the next wave. Tears streamed down my face now, my pain and anger falling like rain at my feet. If anyone was at this church now, I didn’t know it. My chest ached, my mind flew. All the parts of me that still had faith in religion and the soul rose up from me and shone like a star. 20 years of hurt and confusion alight there, brilliant in its power and purity. Sobs begged to wrench free but I held them tenuously. I would not let a fracture be driven in what I was doing here. Toe to toe I looked God in the eye and I spoke from that deepest place in my heart, that box within a box held far within my keep. That scared child, covered in blood and fear was there, and I gave her courage and a voice.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">With this Project I’m doing, I said to God in closing, I build a ship. It is not tall, or wide, or beautiful, but it is strong. It will carry me. It will not break upon the rocks. In this ship, even alone, I will not be cold or afraid, I will not be broken upon by the storm, but I will weather it there. If someone comes with me into my ship some day, then they can weather the waves with me as well, but if they leave, my ship will still be whole. It is not their ship. It is my ship, and I am building it myself. Give or take your mercy as you see fit, but if life is an ocean then I will cross it as a captain and not a castaway.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I am no one’s castaway.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Amen.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
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</div>Jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17339022031680762090noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8125621727603315294.post-22766409754618291782011-08-14T13:03:00.000-07:002011-08-14T13:03:33.939-07:00Step Five: Going to the Movies<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:RelyOnVML/> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/> <w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> <w:Word11KerningPairs/> <w:CachedColBalance/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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I didn’t expect this one to be as hard as it was. How difficult could it be, I thought, to just sit in the dark with a bunch of people that are too invested in what’s going on on the screen to notice that you even exist, let alone that you are not with anyone?<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">I tried to choose my movie wisely. Nothing scary, that would only remind me there was no one there to cling to when I wanted to hide my eyes. Nothing romantic, obviously, why would I want to poke a bruise? I considered a drama, but settled on the safest choice – a comedy. It was a movie I had wanted to see: The Change-Up, starring Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">First and foremost let me say that my favorite part of this step was not having to consult anyone else about any part of it. I went to watch whatever movie I wanted to watch – there was no compromise involved, there was no consulting. I went to the theater I wanted to go to, at whatever time I damn well pleased. I bought the treats I wanted and nothing more or less, and the soda was my choice and no one else’s. These details are small, but they aren’t really. This is what being alone is, for good or for bad: making your own decisions and then reaping the benefit or damnation of those choices.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I took a seat in the theater – not terribly crowded, I got a good seat. The commercials were on so I checked in on Facebook and answered a couple of emails. I turned off my phone, tucked it in my purse, and settled in. When the lights went down and the trailers started… that’s when I noticed I was alone. No one to steal my popcorn, but no buttery fingers to intertwine with my own. When a movie looked like shit, there was no one to whisper that to and have them nod. When a movie looked damn good, there was no one to say “Ooh, let’s see that!” and have them agree or shrug. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The movie started and was immediately hilarious. I enjoyed the whole damn thing, actually. Laughed til I cried probably 8 times. I went in to it expecting it to be a 50/50 shot at being passable as a decent movie, but it surprised me. It was really funny, and poignant, and it felt honest. There were a couple of moments that felt forced, but in any comedy when you introduce sentimentality I think you risk that happening. Still, they did a much better job with it than I would have anticipated. I highly suggest it. Crass as hell, of course. You’ve been warned.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I noticed how weird it is to laugh out loud at something when you’re alone, but not alone. My laugh, particularly, is embarrassingly loud, and in addition to this I find things funny that I don’t think most people find funny because they are so black and dry. I laughed out loud at parts that no one else laughed at… and my laugh sounds like a goddamn foghorn in the quiet. But I’m used to being stared at for my laugh. Don’t make me laugh in a fancy restaurant unless you like attention. What caught me was how hard it was to watch the parts of it that were sentimental. And I don’t mean the romantic parts either. I mean the parts where Ryan Reynold’s character (or is it technically Jason Bateman’s? Just stay with me here) – your typical bachelor <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>– starts to feel what it is for his friend to be a father, and be loved and cared for and the ways that while the family life may be hard it is also vastly rewarding. There I was, tears in my eyes, and no outlet for it. No one to kiss on the cheek, no one whose hand I could squeeze, no shoulder to rest my head upon whimsically. Listen… it just kind of sucked, okay?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I’ll tell you what, I didn’t realize how fully I had converted movie going into a social activity over the years. I feel my movies, I live in them. There are so many small, intimate ways that you interact with the person you’re with. You share in the laughter, you share in the sadness, you soak in the emotions on the screen and you play them out in silent ways with your company. I had no partner for projection there. I mean, think about it, have you ever tried watching a movie with someone you aren’t really connecting with? You spend that 90 minutes stiff and inhibited, scaling back your expression and in turn your enjoyment of it. As quiet and personal as the movie watching experience may be, you want to share a movie, not just see it. You can’t directly interact, but you interact nonetheless, just in barely discernible ways. If anything, this step made me realize how very much watching a movie with someone tells us about who they are and what they’re like. It teaches us about how we connect to that person on a natural level. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">A theater isn’t just a dark place for youthful gropings. It’s not just a place to laugh or cry or sit on the edge of your seat. It is about reaching out for human connections, both with those on the screen and those beside us. </div><div class="MsoNormal">On the other hand, because I had no one to share with, and no one to project my emotions towards, I also had no one else to share my attentions. I could give my full focus toward the movie and just react to it. And the reaction was pure. I didn’t laugh harder because someone was laughing beside me, I didn’t stifle my laugh because the other person wasn’t laughing and wouldn’t get why that was so damn funny. I wasn’t self-conscious when things got sad and my eyes got teary, and I didn’t get weirded out by all the boobs. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I did what the Project is about: I reacted to things on my own terms, and got an honest opinion from myself that wasn’t affected by anyone else. It’s not a huge leap in my understanding, but this isn’t about huge leaps. It’s about healing, and healing is a slow and patient process. I feel the healing though. The wound isn’t open anymore. The scar is forming nicely, and scar tissue is much stronger than regular tissue. It’s not always beautiful, but it’s strong.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>Jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17339022031680762090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8125621727603315294.post-40545491806927870392011-08-13T21:36:00.000-07:002011-08-13T21:39:40.153-07:00Step Four: Linner. Or Dunch.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZec7cr3mcwKEJQt6WIucfSvLwxkae4TYZ_u7o_OkUpVKg0F7BFRD46on3IpbX4UCiWyFCdmkookzU5RV1s_cda4Q5imYus9NvG1egLoBmttcwhCPX6F8bDcdwxIbsiUl97-qa_s_b8Z8Z/s1600/robot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZec7cr3mcwKEJQt6WIucfSvLwxkae4TYZ_u7o_OkUpVKg0F7BFRD46on3IpbX4UCiWyFCdmkookzU5RV1s_cda4Q5imYus9NvG1egLoBmttcwhCPX6F8bDcdwxIbsiUl97-qa_s_b8Z8Z/s400/robot.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">I stumbled upon my most recent step on Friday. My plan had been to go home after work, but instead I made a detour to the mall. My original intent was to pick up something I needed: a new charger to replace my worn and frayed iPhone adapter that was finally dying on me. Once I got there, I even further detoured off course: I went to Victoria’s Secret. I had been needing new panties for a while now, as well as a new bra. They were having a sale. My daughter had mentioned to me that I never seem to buy myself anything, I’m always buying things for them. So I buckled down and I entered. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Most women would be appalled by going underwear shopping. There is little in this world more mortifying than standing in front of a mirror, under unforgiving overhead lighting, and trying on underwear. You might as well glue massive belts of silly putty all over your body for as lumpy and pasty as you look under those lights. I spent a couple of years as a fat girl, then more recently as a well-rounded girl. Unforgiving is a kind word for it. However, since losing 20 pounds in my break up with Ben, my body looks – to be frank – amazing. Flat tummy, toned arms, thighs and ass just the right amount of fleshy without having too much jiggle to them. Don’t get me wrong, I still have a little cottage cheese on the thighs and stretch marks here or there. I’m 32 years old for god’s sake and I’ve had 2 children. But all things considered, I look great.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal">So for the first time since high school, I was happy with what I saw in the mirror. I tried on bra after bra, panty after panty, and I reveled a bit in my new found sexiness. I held my head high, I had confidence in what I saw. When I left with my bag full of delicious goodies, I felt damn good. I walked outside and the sun was shining. I bought my cell phone charger, stopped at a jewelry store and had bought the cute little robot necklace you see in the picture above, when my tummy growled. I considered all the fast food places I could stop at on my way home. Everything sounded gross. Burgers, fries, sub sandwiches, tacos. Yuck. I considered for a moment the sushi place by my house whose sushi I love. I could just get some take out… and take it home… and eat it alone at my dining room table… Sigh. That didn’t sound good at all. I was happy, I was energetic, the sun was shining. I didn’t want to go home. It struck me then – why don’t I just go out to dinner here? The <a href="http://www.bluecsushi.com/">Blue C Sushi</a> was right around the corner. When the idea fell upon me, it settled my soul immediately and I smiled to myself. Perfect.<br />
<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">People were lining the walls waiting for a seat. I approached the hostess and she smiled and stared. I could hear her brain trying to find a polite way to say “Just you?” so I saved her the trouble after a long silence. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Just me!” I said, and smiled.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"> “Oh, okay. Well, there’s a seat open right there along the bar if that’s okay?” </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“That works!” I said, and seated myself. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This is great, I thought, no wait when you’re a one instead of a two or a three. Blue C was a perfect place to break the hymen of eating alone as well. I didn’t have to sit in uncomfortable silence as I waited for the waiter to approach with a menu, I didn’t have to look over a menu then wait for the meal to come once ordered. The food was already there, making its way around the conveyor belt. I sat down, pulled down a California roll ( I usually start with a California roll, it readies my palette for what lies ahead) and began to mix my soy sauce and wasabi. The waiter asked what I would like to drink, then brought me my Diet Coke. I was sitting next to a couple and their daughter. They weren’t speaking, just eating and watching the cartoons on the wall as I was. After 5 or 10 minutes, they stood and left and I was at the bar alone for a while. Next a couple sat down, but they left a chair open between themselves and me. I ate my California roll slowly and watched the cartoons. Samurai Jack was playing. I had always liked that show. Pity the sound was off. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I had pulled down some edamame and began to snack away at it when someone came and took the single seat beside me. It was a man, I’m guessing in the range of 22-23 years old. He had nautical tattoos on his arms and a clean haircut. I guessed him for a navy man. He ordered a Sapporo and took down a plate of California roll. He excused himself and took the soy sauce and wasabi from near me. The restaurant is set up for couples, so there was only set between us. I checked my email. There were a few from work that I checked and answered. The man next to me was doing the same thing. I pulled down the vegetable tempura as he pulled down a plate of my next choice: shrimp tempura roll. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">We had been sitting there for about 10 to 15 minutes, the two of us, not speaking except to say “excuse my reach” as we got more wasabi. I figured he was pretty harmless in the predator category, and I considered one of my future steps: the park bench. You sit and you have conversations you never would have had, if you hadn’t been alone. That was the adventure, right? So I took a leap. It felt awkward. I went for it.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Do you usually eat here by yourself?” I asked him. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“What?” He hadn’t heard me. The music is a bit loud there.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Do you eat here by yourself very often?” I rephrased. He shrugged.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“I’ve eaten here by myself a few times. I usually come with my friends.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: center 3.25in;">“I’ve never had dinner by myself.” I said. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Really?!” he said, surprised. That made me feel less weird. “Well, this is a good place to come because you don’t have to wait in line usually, and you don’t have to wait for the food to come, you just pick it off the belt.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I nodded. He seemed receptive to conversation. He told me about being in from the navy (so I was right!) and how he was stationed on the Lincoln and they were just in port for a month or so. He was from Dallas originally. No accent though. He introduced himself (his name was Preston) with a handshake. I told him about the Project and he was impressed by my decision to take a handle of things. He said being alone isn’t so hard as long as you’re like me – outgoing and social. We shared stories about our tattoos, traded stories about visiting L.A., NYC and San Diego. We sat and talked for about an hour as we ate sushi and he order another Sapporo and I got a refill on my Diet Coke. I talked about my kids, he talked about his parents. There was no flirtation about it, but there was a good social connection there. It was neat. When we were full, we got our checks and left. We didn’t exchange information, but I thanked my temporary friend Preston for his company. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I don’t consider this my “Dinner” step, though technically it was dinner. This restaurant wasn’t a real fancy restaurant with linen napkins, I wasn’t at a table or a booth. It was much more like my Lunch step, I think, only it was later in the day. But I liked this experience so very much. I like that it was spontaneous; I didn’t plan it out and ready myself and walk out the door. It was a natural part of the course of my evening. And that’s what the Project is about, isn’t it? Finding value in my everyday aloneness. Not forcing myself into aloneness, but taking the aloneness that is there and finding the good in it. Settling into it. That’s what I did, and it felt natural. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">As with all the steps, I reveled in the fact I had nowhere to be, and no one to answer to. I could take as long as I wanted to eat my sushi and speak with my new friend Preston because it was just me. If someone had been there with me, I would have learned more about them and there is value in that, but since no one was there I was able to learn about this entirely different person. And I also learned a bit about myself. I am easy to talk to. I draw people out. I am always going to be okay being alone, because I am an innately social animal and in some ways I will <u>never</u> be alone. Place me in any setting and I will find a way to thrive. That is a noble attribute. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The Project is working, you guys. Look at me go!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>Jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17339022031680762090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8125621727603315294.post-83620319392593744372011-08-03T22:00:00.000-07:002011-08-03T22:00:08.946-07:00Step Three: Going in Circles<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:RelyOnVML/> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/> <w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> <w:Word11KerningPairs/> <w:CachedColBalance/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYAmOFwZ2oCDQHrn0BhWZ0GZZlqwIwhp7gG5104uqo8ipmQeyhCtfUNBa0yQsVc4zn3OAUmyBQOsZy-MsW-vRIgq44Hu2ks0vCkx_QYZWaHIfmqD2qbscM7fErR_EZCrrUnjaf1hyphenhyphenaEBq9/s1600/IMG_1426.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYAmOFwZ2oCDQHrn0BhWZ0GZZlqwIwhp7gG5104uqo8ipmQeyhCtfUNBa0yQsVc4zn3OAUmyBQOsZy-MsW-vRIgq44Hu2ks0vCkx_QYZWaHIfmqD2qbscM7fErR_EZCrrUnjaf1hyphenhyphenaEBq9/s640/IMG_1426.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>The day I went to Greenlake was perfect. It was warm but not hot. I got there around 7:30 at night, and the crowds were beginning to diminish but they hadn’t vanished. The sun was setting on Seattle as I began my walk. I didn’t take my earbuds, I didn’t really want to do anything to deaden or distract. The point was to enjoy my company, not to turn off the sound of my own thoughts.<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">The first mile was awkward. I felt like I was being stared at. There are 2 kinds of people at Greenlake: 1) The Alone People, wearing their jogging shoes, or riding their bikes, moving quickly and dodging between the Not Alone People or 2) The Not Alone People, traveling in their pairs and packs, slowly grazing like cattle around the perimeter. I felt at first as though I was wearing antennae, because I didn’t fit in. I was alone and meandering. I imagined that people were wondering to themselves, “What’s wrong with her? Is she high? Did someone die? Did she just get dumped?” OH! Bingo. Yah, I felt like I had a glowing, light trimmed arrow pointing and flashing at me from above. I hardly noticed my surroundings for that first 30 minutes or so. I mostly paid attention to the feel of my feet taking one lonely step after another. I wanted a hand to hold. I wanted a voice in my ear that wasn’t a stranger’s.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I was creeping into the second mile and had begun to let my thoughts sink into Ben again. That happens pretty rarely lately. I’ve been healing pretty well and letting go of a lot of the residual attachment I had to my life having Ben in it. I was no longer thinking of him first when I woke up in the morning, or last when I went to bed. My chest has lost that ache that had become so familiar with each breath. Hours were passing at the end of which I would realize I hadn’t thought of him at all. I was mending. But as the sun began to set, I turned inward. I was thinking about my future, and how bright it appeared to be, but as so often it does my mind wandered not to my successes but to my failures. Why had I been so disposable to Ben? Why had I been, after so much history, been so easy to throw away? Am I kidding myself in believing I have something to offer? I began to wonder if maybe the idea of me was much better than ACTUAL me. Am I a great interview, but a terrible employee? Am I fun on paper, but just not worth dealing with? Would all of my future relationships be tainted by my willingness to put my ideal self forward, only to disappoint with the reality of what I am? I stopped at a shady spot beneath a tree looking over the lake. I watched the ducks drift by, slipping across the glassy water, and the voices and sounds of the people on the trail evaporated into the ether as I began to cry. It wasn’t an audible cry, it wasn’t that cry in which you bury your face in your arms. It’s that cry where you’re just not sure what to do but crying seems right and so you let it happen. Fat, wet tears rolled down my cheeks, and since I was hidden away from everyone else, I let them fall.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I don’t want to feel broken anymore.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Eventually I stood and walked out from under my tree and when I did, there was a bench in the grass across from me. An old couple was sitting there, quietly holding hands. They weren’t exchanging words, but they were connected. I pondered for a moment the comfort inherent in being still with someone. It’s so much more intimate than talking or gesturing or imposing some idea. You are simply soaking in their presence, the joy of their company. I wondered at the idea of having that with myself. Noiseless and still in my own presence. As I began the rest of my walk, I began to feel a sort of calm come over me. I wasn’t so worried about the other people around me. I focused on the sound of my own breath, of my heart beat in my ears. I paid attention to the way my arms and hips moved in time with my steps. I looked out over the lake, and paid attention to the different trees that were planted around the grassy park surrounding the water. The sun was setting and the air was cooling and it felt good in my lungs. It felt clean. I let the breeze wash over me and paid attention to the feel of it crossing over my skin. It was good.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Again I felt that feeling that I felt with the other steps. It felt… free. I was here alone. I had no one to entertain. My thoughts and feelings were my own. I could laugh, I could cry, I could walk slowly, or speed my pace. There was no one else to consider but myself. Thinking of that pushed my shoulders back, it lifted my chin. I didn’t have anyone here to accompany me, but I also didn’t have anyone to answer to. I felt strong, I felt brave. I felt FIERCE. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Which is probably what brought me to the debacle at the beginning of mile 3. I had poked my phone into my back pocket (I was expecting my kiddos to call, but I didn’t read or answer any text messages while I was there for my alone time. That wouldn’t be very “alone”, now would it?), and my car keys into my hoodie pocket, but I had locked my purse in the trunk of my car for safe keeping. I had forgotten to bring a bottle of water with me. By the time I started the 3<sup>rd</sup> mile, I was thirsty, but I had no water. There was a small shop by the side of the lake that sold beverages. As I approached it – penniless as I was – I saw that it also sold ice cream. God damn it. Now I wanted ice cream, too.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I had no money, the car was about a mile away so it made no sense to walk there and walk back. Still… ice cream. I looked around me at my surroundings and saw to young men sitting on the grass across the trail. I considered my position carefully, shrugged, and went for it. I was feeling fierce. I could do this.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Hi!” I said. They looked up at me. I smiled my 100 watt smile, cocked my head to the right.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Hi…?” They said, almost in unison. They were maybe 19 or 20. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Could I have 5 dollars?” I asked. That was all. They watched for a moment, as if awaiting elaboration, but I offered none. I felt this was a challenge. The one on the right spoke.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“What?” he said. Obviously he was not my target. I shifted my attention to the one on the left. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Could I please have 5 dollars?” I asked again. Jacked up the smile wattage to 1,000, head tilt to the left, cute little nose scrunch to seal the deal. There was an almost imperceptible pause before the boy answered, during which I was almost worried.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“I think I have $5…” he said, and dug it out of his wallet. His friend looked at him as though he was buying magic beans, though those would have had a more realistic turn around. I thanked him with another 1,000 watt smile and went to claim my reward.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Mmmm… bottled water and ice cream dipped in crunch bar. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I got a dollar back in change and I returned it to the young man. I’m not sure what he thought when he saw me approach him holding water and an ice cream, but I’m sure a lesson was learned there. Don’t worry, I’ll pay it forward.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Regardless, by the time I got back to my car, I had a smile on my face. I didn’t care that I was alone. I was sharing the inside joke with myself about getting a silly boy to buy me ice cream for no reason. I had enjoyed the sunset, gotten some exercise, and pushed the envelope of my comfort zone, all while being reminded I’m actually still kind of young and pretty.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This trip did more than the others. It encouraged me to do more. I felt confident as I was walking away. I was excited for the next step, and the step after that. I think between the steps, and my growing comfort with the sound of my own footsteps in my house, and sleeping alone every night for so long, that I’m getting a grip on all of this. I feel some long dormant part of me tossing and turning, rubbing its eyes, and taking a long stretch. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">My soul is waking, I can feel it.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>Jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17339022031680762090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8125621727603315294.post-61607308690076561952011-08-03T19:35:00.000-07:002011-08-03T19:47:35.166-07:00Interlude: In the Name of Absolute Transparency aka Don't You Dare Suggest I'm a CowardFirst and foremost, I’ve been called out.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Something’s been going on that may be affecting the Project, and it was recently suggested that I would be too ashamed by my failure to be honest with it here. That’s defeating the purpose, isn’t it? Lying, hiding? This isn’t about my audience. Yes, you’re here so I’ll maintain some accountability, but the purpose of the accountability wasn’t about avoiding judgment – my life has been riddled with judgment since I was a young white trash girl living with a goat in an apartment (long story). It was about maintaining accountability so I would follow my steps. I didn’t want to chicken out when things got uncomfortable as I pushed my boundaries. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Let me make this perfectly clear, first and foremost: My life is my own, and I make the decisions I feel suit it best. Sometimes people consider them self-destructive – such as the people who suggested I abort or give up my son because I was young, unmarried and had just moved in with Rich a month prior to finding out I was pregnant. Thank goodness I didn’t listen to those boneheads, I would have missed out on 10 years of one of the most amazing kids I’ve ever known. I was told to (begged to, really) quit my job over a year ago. I powered through it despite popular opinion, and despite the boss I had at the time making me cry on a regular basis. Today I have the most rewarding job I’ve ever had because I stuck it out. My gut doesn’t always steer me wrong. Only I can know my life from the inside, and I have to make the call based on what feels right.<br />
<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So here we go. Transparency. Honesty. I have been talking to a boy. He lives in another country. He is handsome, charming, and he bought me a present. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">You are more than welcome to consider this a blatant disregard for the Project. I can certainly understand the urge to consider someone I can’t touch, meet, have sex with, sleep next to, cuddle with, or even meet for coffee a very serious risk to my attempt at being alone. I have never felt so involved as I do right now. He is able to meet all of my emotional and physical needs as defined in a relationship from his vantage point 4,772 miles away. Okay, okay, my sarcasm is getting a bit catty here, but you’re catching my drift, right? I’m just saying – have a little perspective. However, you are more than welcome to your opinion of this contact.<br />
<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I am Jack’s complete lack of concern.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The project is mine. I defined its boundaries, and its purpose. I defined its parameters, and they were as such: 6 months alone. Follow the steps, do them alone. Learn how to enjoy my own company. I didn’t consider my main goal to be being unsupported and cut off. I never claimed I would be celibate, I claimed one thing: no boyfriend for 6 months and learn to be comfortable in my own skin. The goal was so that in the future – relationship or no – I would be able to feel okay on my own so I wouldn’t *need* a guy. I would be okay doing things on my own. However, life changes every day. We adjust. The Project is only as static as my own reality.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">On April 20<sup>th</sup>, Ben left. Since that day I have not been told “I love you”, no one has curled close to me at night, no one has held my hand or tucked my hair behind my ear. On October 20<sup>th</sup>, I will have been without the comfort of those affections for 6 months. Will that mean that I have not been told I’m pretty? No. I get “You’re pretty” at every dive bar and skeezy club I end up in. That’s not realistic. Will that mean that I won’t have had sex? Nope, it doesn’t mean that either. I’m saying – where do you want me to draw the line? Is it if I “seek out” men to tell me I’m pretty so it makes me feel better and less alone? Is it if I let a man buy me a drink at a bar? What if I talk to the man? What if I let him take me home for the night but never see him again? Where does the line end? My opinion is that it’s my decision. This is my project. I determine its purpose and its worth. No one else can decide that for me. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I am talking to a boy. He lives in another country. I am going to continue the steps because I think that learning to be alone is still real here, and still essential here, and I am not swayed by his attentions in relation to the project. I am going to continue talking to the boy who lives in another country. I am not going to be made ashamed by your disapproval because I believe I am still able to accomplish what I came here to accomplish – learning to be okay on my own. I am still here alone. My house is still empty. My bed is still empty. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">When the Project is yours, you are welcome to make your own rules. I will judge them accordingly. If you give up on me and my ability to follow the steps, or if you have decided that the Project is worthless now, then so be it. I am not continuing it to appease you anymore than I started it to appease you. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But don’t think for a minute that I’m going to hide a damn thing. I may be a broken fuck-up, but I’m no coward.</div>Jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17339022031680762090noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8125621727603315294.post-28181393246438070142011-07-20T22:01:00.000-07:002011-07-20T22:40:16.395-07:00Interlude: The TickingAnother week with my kids is winding to a close and ahead of me lies another week alone. This last week has brought about some internal shifts, some of which lead me to some interesting theories on what might be contributing to why I am uncomfortable being alone in the first place. It will involve me being a bit vulnerable in the face of someone I’m not prepared to be vulnerable in front of, but I’m not really comfortable with any of this, am I? I’m not comfortable with Ben leaving, I’m not comfortable with being alone, I’m not comfortable with the things I’m pushing myself to do. Being comfortable hasn’t ever helped me a whole lot. Nothing of substance or beauty in my life has been born of mediocrity; they all took rabid acts of faith and courage. There is a lesson in that, I suppose. <br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">I often wonder what is so bad about me that I am afraid, or disgusted, to be alone with myself. There is plenty in here to be ashamed of – I never went to college, I come from a poor white trash family, I’ve been beaten and abused in every sense of the word and that can lead a person to feel as tattered, worn and useless as an old rag. However, I know that there is something about me that is worth something too, so I’ve never been too sure of why I can’t appreciate that value for what it is in myself as I would if another person with those same flaws and attributes were standing before me. Well, I think I may have triggered an occurrence that can lead me to the origin of my dislike. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I tried to make a friend, recently. I don’t do that often, really. Most people come into my life and I escort them out as quickly as a fat kid taking on an oiled slip and slide. I don’t have the easiest time trusting people, and I think it’s because I know most people don’t stay. I never really picked it apart beyond that. I knew there was something about me that was too rough around the edges for people to stay around, I guess I let the idea roll off my heart pretty quickly with the rationalization that not many people want to be friends with the uneducated white trash girl with tattoos who used to do a lot of speed. I’m sure that there is a part of you that is thinking, “But that is obviously not the girl that is writing here now. You can’t be uneducated trash, you speak clearly and concisely, you love and care for your children, you are obviously a smart person who is trying to put her life in the right.” And those things are all true. But I’m online, and my identity is veiled by the wall that is the computer monitor. I am safe tucked away back here, being this faceless person. These words on the page are the innermost, vulnerable me. The me that is very much scared, and hurting, and broken and desperate. Out there? Out there in the world I am a different kind of human being entirely. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I used to think that the differences in who I appear to be, and who I am, were simply adaptations to my environment but I realize now that that isn’t entirely accurate. Most people will only ever know who I am “out there”. The social butterfly, the girl that makes you laugh and says over-the-top things and drinks too much and listens to loud, hard music and gets in fights at bars and flirts shamelessly and just generally kicks life’s ass. This is the girl who, when given lemons by life, tracks life down and tells it where to put it’s goddamn motherfucking lemons and somehow manages to get her money back even though life has a strict no return policy. Most people really, really like this girl. And why not? She’s fun, she’s crazy, you don’t have to take anything seriously, if you date her you get to have all this fun crazy sex, and if you don’t date her you still get to go along for the ride. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The only problem is that she is just the armor. She is there to hide the girl inside that is very much the scared, hurting, broken and desperate girl on these pages. That girl inside is real, whether you want her to be or not. She is in there, and she navigates this ship more than most people can ever really know. She is the core of who I am. I don’t mind that; I don’t mind being vulnerable or letting people see that I’ve been bruised a bit by the life I’ve lived. The only problem, I guess, is that most other people do.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Everyone wants to date the pretty, fun, crazy girl. Until she lets you in, and you have to see the parts of her that are dark, and sad, and damaged, because those parts aren’t easy and fun. Those parts are serious, and real, and make you think and feel and most people don’t want to think or feel about anything beyond the end of their noses. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to say “Most people are inherently selfish because they don’t want to hear about my daddy issues.” What I’m saying is that most people have enough of their own damage, they don’t want to know about mine. The people who are in my life, and continue to be in my life, are those that can face that kind of darkness, who have an intimate knowledge of it from their own journeys, and having walked that path themselves can say, “I get it.” They aren’t afraid to look at the dark, they don’t run from or shy away from it. They don’t live their lives to be IN it, but they have the courage to know there is a time and place for it in all lives.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">There are the people who want to hear about what movie I went and saw, and what bands I like, and how drunk I got last weekend, and then there are the people who want to know what makes you tick, because they are so intrigued by what makes THEM tick. Because they can step back and recognize that all life is, in the end, is the ticking.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So I’m trying to be friends with this person, and I don’t think they want to be friends with me. This person knows the armor of me that is so much fun, and I thought I could see glimpses of what made them tick, and that perhaps we shared some ticking in common, and so I tried to show them a bit of what’s under the armor. But every time I lift the chain mail they vanish, and resurface much later to steer the conversation away from the ticking. I’ve begun to distance them, and am putting the full suit of armor back on, and in the midst of that was when it hit me. While trying to tell myself that this silly, unsubstantial person on the internet really meant nothing at all and I shouldn’t take it as a rejection, I realized: it <u>is</u> a rejection. And that’s the core of it.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">When I am alone, there is no armor. I can’t amuse myself with humor and self-deprecation. Who laughs at their own jokes? Who smiles at the sight of their own smile, who can create witty banter when they’re alone? Who is the life of a party of one? My armored self is useless when I’m alone, which leaves nothing but the ticking. It’s not that I’m afraid to face the darkness alone, it’s not that I’m afraid to walk the path through myself. I’m a writer, we are nothing if not introspective, the path through my own heart and mind are well worn and familiar. I realized that every time I have allowed someone under the armor who then said, “But this isn’t FUN. Put this away and bring back out the FUN Jennifer” who I am at my most real and vulnerable has been rejected. Every acquaintance I have tried to make a friend has reconfirmed the idea to me that there is no value in what makes me tick, because no one is interested in knowing it. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I don’t want to be alone because I am sick of knowing what makes me tick. It’s like a metronome in an empty room. I don’t want to hear it anymore. Having real conversations about things that hurt us, or scare us, or about love or beauty or art or feeling – they’re not FUN. I have been trained time and time again through a series of rejections of those things that are intimate and real that if I’m not going to be fun, I shouldn’t even BE. Alone, it will just be me and that metronome of my heart, beating out of my chest like a drum sounding a call to no one. What a terrible, wonderful darkness that would be.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I want to believe that if I learn to peel away the armor when I’m alone, and let the ticking lay bare, perhaps I won’t need the armor someday, and people can take or leave me as they please without it hurting so. Perhaps I will love the sound of my own heart beating so much, that I won’t hurt if no one else wants to hear it, like a song I never teach another soul the words to. Does it make the lyrics or harmony any less beautiful if they only fall upon my ears? I don’t know the answer to that. I just know I still want to believe that intimacy and raw human connection are noble pursuits. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>Jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17339022031680762090noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8125621727603315294.post-54870479199439391472011-07-10T23:53:00.000-07:002011-07-11T08:01:15.610-07:00Step Two: The Coffee Shop<div class="MsoNormal">My intention was to fill my weekend alone with steps for the Project. I was going to hit the coffee store, and walk around Greenlake on the beautiful, sunny Saturday, then on Sunday I was going to look into taking the train or bus somewhere, just to get a feel for riding alone. I was full of ambition because for some reason Ben’s ghost had stopped so frequently haunting my thoughts. I think doing the 4<sup>th</sup> of July on my own made a difference. I could feel myself healing a bit. I was proud of the progress my heart was making.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">As quickly as my strength seemed to increase, on Friday night as I sat alone it just as quickly vanished. I was up until 3 a.m. keeping the voices at bay that seemed so eager to remind me of what a hopeless, unlovable mess I was. I squeezed my eyes shut and buried my head in my pillow on the couch and though I couldn’t cry my heart beat hard like my chest was as hollow as a drum. Sleep came slow and struggling. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Saturday I lay in bed until almost 1. I couldn’t bring myself to get up. I didn’t want to face my house, the sunshine, my reflection in the mirror. I knew I was supposed to get up and take one of my steps but every move I made my body groaned with missing Ben. How productive would I be in this frame of mind? How much progress could I make? Wouldn’t I just go and sit and wallow in my loneliness? Eventually I made it to the couch, but I didn’t move. I ate junk food, I watched T.V. and I sat under a blanket, trying to ignore the shard of sunshine and blue skies I could see peeping through the crack between my living room curtains. I laid here, frozen by my depression. All. Damn. Day. I went to sleep at that oh-so familiar time of 3:30 a.m. and I woke up only 5 hours later. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">When I woke up, I groaned at being awake. I hated it. I hated waking up alone again, I hated the quiet, I hated that my stomach was growling which meant I was going to have to get up and go to the trouble of putting food in it. I got up none-the-less. I ate breakfast, I took a shower, I put on my clothes. All things that I shouldn’t be writing in a blog about but they were all very small victories for me at this point and I celebrate them as such. I grabbed Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and set out into the daylight for the next step. </div><div class="MsoNormal">There’s a good-sized Starbucks that just opened near my house and this seemed a good opportunity to check it out. When I arrived it was empty of all but one customer. The cushy leather chairs and ample sofa were all free so I ordered my drink (I’m a true Seattleite, and I was a Starbucks girl myself once, so my sunny day drink is an iced grande half-caff toffee nut whole milk no whip light ice mocha. Say that 3 times fast) and got comfortable. As I settled in, I became a little disappointed that there weren’t more people there. My goal, I guess, was to test my comfort zone by being alone amidst a lot of people. I absolutely rue that thought process now.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I was only there about 20 minutes, just long enough to become really at ease, when the door opened and a man walked in that was so beautiful my mouth gaped open. I was sitting near to and across from the door, so naturally he had a point blank view of my ogling. I quickly clamped my jaw shut and jammed my face in the book but the damage was done. I felt him watch me out of the corner of my eye as he waited for his drink. I looked up and made the briefest of eye contact with him before I hurriedly turned back to my book and he pretended to be looking at the ceiling or floor or some silly thing. His order was called. Grande soy chai tea extra foamy latte. The store was empty now, every chair, every table was free. Out of them all, he sat in the cushy chair next to the couch I was curled up on and opened his book. He had dirty blonde hair and those blue eyes that weaken my knees. He was wearing Chuck Taylor’s and a plaid button up shirt with the sleeves rolled up. I buried my nose deeper in my book and reread the same line 4 times before it would sink in.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal">When Ben came around, I hadn’t seen him in years. My heart had seemed to wilt and fade in my marriage, and my next long term relationship (after my marriage, but before Ben) was after months of false start relationships that left me unimpressed and detached. When I got into that middle relationship, I barely felt anything at all, but I had truly begun to believe perhaps I didn’t feel sparks anymore. I hadn’t felt head over heels in love since I had first gotten together with my husband, back when I was only 20. I thought perhaps being “head over heels” was something you only did when you were very young. Perhaps it was unrealistic of me to think I would feel that way again. Perhaps I had been hurt, and disillusioned, and abandoned so many many times that I wasn’t capable of trusting someone enough to let myself feel that way. Perhaps I should work at just finding someone that I thought was fun, and compatible on most levels with me, and call it good. Perhaps this was growing up. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Meeting with Ben after those many years, the feeling was absolute, immediate and utterly overwhelming. I was terrified. I told him I was terrified. I begged him to leave me be if he meant to do what he always did with women: get bored, get detached, and leave. He insisted he had changed and he seemed to have. Despite the way my heels flew so quickly over my head, I forced myself to remain detached from Ben. I reminded myself that he always had one foot out the door. That despite what my friends told me, someday his fear would over take him and he’d be gone. For all the times he told me he loved me, and cared for me and brought me into his life, I could not, would not, allow myself to believe he would stay. It was too dangerous to commit my heart to all this completely, to be intimately vulnerable on every level. We had our bumps in the road here and there, days when he spoke the words out loud that he was afraid. I saw him struggling to let me in, which was so against everything he had ever taught himself. A week after a particularly rocky spell in which I was sure he was about to run, he sat beside me on the couch and mentioned almost in passing that he would never break up with me. We had been together over a year at this point, and had our struggles. He said I was the best thing that had ever happened to him, and he wasn’t going anywhere. A couple of days later, he texted me something similar, telling me that I was perfect for him, why would he ever purposely mess this up? That night I wrote a journal entry entitled “In Which I FINALLY Feel Secure with Ben”. I was finally at a point when I felt like I could relax, that he was mine and he meant to follow this through. Despite the chips and cracks in my surface, he saw my value, he knew my worth, and he loved me. I was home, and I could stay here. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">3 weeks later Ben left.<br />
<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The man in the chair at Starbucks had a book too. I jumped as though kismet itself had screamed just then into my ear as I saw that he was reading a very well worn copy of Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. By Tom Robbins. My favorite novel. My eyes lingered on his book and hands for too long because he looked up and smiled and caught my eye again. I lifted my book again, but it was too late. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“That looks pretty new.” He said. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“What?”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Your book. It looks new. Have you read the series before?”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Oh, no. I love the movies, I was afraid reading the books would ruin them.” I didn’t smile. I looked back to my book. My stomach was fluttering in that way that would usually make me smile coyly, bat my eyes, and tuck a lock of hair behind my ear. The feeling of my stomach fluttering made me feel out of control. My heart sank. I heard him laugh.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“I can understand that. I’m a big fan of the movies, too. Are you excited for the new one coming out?” He had put his book down in his lap, so when I looked up from my book he was giving all of his attention to me. His eyes were warm, and he looked a little nervous. I felt my chest tighten and my face flushed. My body reacted in that warm, drawn way that a woman reacts to a man. I hesitated. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Yes. Yah, it looks good.” I was speaking very quietly now. I felt like I was being rude. This feeling of getting attention from this man, though… it made me panic. The idea of liking him terrified me on a deep, primal level. I couldn’t even breathe. I must have looked like a deer in the headlights. I heard a voice in my head explode, “NO!” and it wasn’t about the project, and it wasn’t about keeping myself from doing something I had told myself I wouldn’t do. It was absolute terror of caring. I could see down the tunnel of my “relationship” with this man whose name I didn’t know to holding his hand and laughing and cuddling on the couch and sleeping beside him and I could see that moment he fucking walked away and left me standing there more broken than I already am. In a flash, in an instant, I saw it all. I closed my book, scooped up my purse, and he watched me awkwardly as I <u>ran</u> out of that coffee shop and into my car. I left my coffee, like Cinderella’s slipper as I went. I drove away, deciding to try a different Starbucks in a different town about 20 minutes away. My hands and legs were trembling and when I hit the highway I broke down into tears. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">By the time Ben had come around I was so cynical about my heart. Why had I been such a fool to believe that he would be different? Why I had I let him in? Into my life, into my children’s lives? Why had I ignored all the ways I am broken and fucked up and believed that I could actually maintain a happy relationship? Why did I think anyone was capable of knowing me, and understanding me, and being okay with what they found? Why do I keep telling myself I am worth a damn?! </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I pulled up to the next Starbucks none-the-less. I wiped my face and steeling my determination I got out of that fucking car and I went in the coffee shop. I ordered another goddamn coffee and I found a comfortable chair and I sat in it. I know my face was red, and swollen from crying, but I didn’t care. I didn’t stop to look at the people around me. I’m sure I looked desperate and strange. I ordered a Chai latte this time, extra foamy. For a moment it reminded me of the snowboarding trip I had taken that winter with Ben. I had gotten hurt pretty badly and sat alone in the lodge drinking the same latte. We had gone with his sister. I miss her. I miss believing that someday she, and all of his sisters and nieces and nephew, would be my family. But this is neither here nor there. The memory was there for but a moment, then gone. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I began to read again, and as any good book does, I was pulled in and the worries of my own life washed clean from the slate of my mind. I drank my Chai and lingered. Eventually my shoulders slumped a little less, I began to look around at the other faces in the shop. I watched the people filter in and out. I watched a couple sit at a table, not speaking to each other, their eyes wandering along the walls but not passing more than a word or two. I tried to decide if what was between them was a cold distance, or a comfortable silence. I considered that when Ben and I were together in restaurants and coffee shops, there was always talking, sharing, joking, laughing. Our silences were just gentle, natural pauses in our banter. I considered also, that now I was going to be sculpting and developing a very different kind of balance between silence and conversation with myself. I was going to have to learn how to listen to what was going on inside my own head. To listen to my gut and instincts again. To rebuild the walls I may have been foolish to tear back down. </div><div class="MsoNormal">In the end, it was relaxing to be reading alone in my coffee shop. As much as the memories were present, I knew I didn’t have to struggle anymore. Yes, I don’t have that wonderful feeling I had when I felt like I was home, but I also don’t have to struggle and wonder and second guess and walk on egg shells, wondering if I’m worth loving. The only person I have to worry about loving me right now is me. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Boyfriends and husbands, even our friends, will leave us in the end. Not to be too dark here, but in the end, we are alone. Boyfriends and husbands leave you or die, friends get boyfriends or have babies and suddenly they drop off the face of the earth. You only have yourself at the end of the day, so the most valuable thing we can do for ourselves is assure that the one thing that is always with us – US – is at its best. Ultimately, our own personal integrity is all we have. I can’t remember the last time I really focused on cultivating that. </div><div class="MsoNormal">It was only the coffee shop, and it was a small step, but I took it on my own, and that made all the difference.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Forward, forward, ever forward.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>Jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17339022031680762090noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8125621727603315294.post-72982098030563630422011-07-05T16:15:00.000-07:002011-07-05T16:34:07.573-07:00Interlude: 3:30 a.m.When my son was born, I was only 22 years old. Looking back on it, in many ways I was just a baby myself. Sure, I’d been living on my own for about 7 years by then, so I was probably a little more mature than a lot of women my age, but looking back on it 10 years later its even hard to call what I was then a “woman”. My life was still being sorted out, and my future was still this ambiguous mountain shrouded in fog. Things were very confusing as I was learning to navigate how I would raise myself while I raised this other person, and the task was daunting. The sleepless nights wore on me as I descended into a haze of naps and feedings and diaper changes. Still, the time of day that was my favorite by far was 3:30 a.m. Littleman always woke up at 3:30 a.m. for a feeding those first few months. I would lift him from his crib and change him before walking him out to the living room and sitting on the couch to feed him. 3:30 a.m. is probably the quietest time in the world. No one is yet leaving for work, no one is yet returning from it, the darkness is still upon us and the birds are quiet in the treetops. A silence lies as a still blanket over the night, wrapping the world up tight in its calm. Here in the living room, enveloped in the quiet, it was just me and my son. I didn’t need to share him with anyone else, there was no one and nothing to detract his attention away from me. We would watch each other lovingly, learning who we were and what our new roles were going to be, his hand grasping my finger, his eyes scanning my face in the light cast by the lamp in his nursery across the hall. He would drift to sleep and I would hold him there in my arms a little longer, smelling his hair and kissing his forehead before slipping him back into his crib.<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">For the last 2 months I have had to fall asleep on my couch with the television on. I usually put in a movie – at first Lord of the Rings, but lately <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0832266/">Definitely, Maybe</a>. I curl up on my couch under a blanket and I watch the light cast from the television dance across the hardwood floor, and I hear the gentle murmur of the voices and music, and as the Ambien or exhaustion take hold I fall asleep there. Every night I wake up at 3:30 a.m., for some reason that only body or my brain knows, and I go to my bed. By then the DVD has been repeating the title menu soundtrack for a while, and my mind has shut down for the most part. I can usually slip, still clothed, between my sheets and fall asleep fairly quickly. These last 2 weeks, that has not been the case. I wake at 3:30 a.m. and I turn off the TV and I am somehow more aware of it that my house has fallen still. The darkness is around me but it feels distant and cold. The sound of my feet on the floor is loud now and the stillness of my home echoes with the same aching I feel in my chest. We are empty. I climb into bed and I stare at the wall. I remember that last night I spent with Ben, and his feet touching mine, and the smell of his pillow and his neck. I fall asleep with my fists clenched tight, burying my face to hide my hurt from the ascending daylight. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This was the first 4<sup>th</sup> of July since I was 15 years old that I wasn’t in a relationship. It isn’t really a part of the project because I had my kids with me and so it wasn’t within the scope of <a href="http://theunlonelyproject.blogspot.com/2011/06/what-is-project.html">the rule</a> (Do It Alone), but I set upon it as such nonetheless. Beers, barbecues and explosions have always been set pretty comfortably by my mind into the “boy” category, like many girls might categorize mowing the lawn, taking out the trash, changing the oil, or killing a spider. I had never dealt with this stuff. If I hadn’t had my kids, I probably would have just put in some earplugs and fallen asleep on the couch as if it were any other day. Having them with me meant I needed to step up to the plate and make it a good day for them, so I put on my game face and braved the unfamiliar terrain. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I’m happy to say I did pretty well. I attended a great barbecue with old friends and lots of other kids. My friends Bryan and Tara were running a fireworks stand so I got an amazing deal and Bryan was happy to walk me down the aisles and point out which fireworks did what, and what was and wasn’t a bang worth the buck. I made a fruit salad. Things went really well, and it was great to laugh with my friends and smell the barbecue and watch the sparklers waving in the dark. It was when the mortars – the big, beautiful fireworks that Bryan and Tara had brought from the stand – came out that I even remembered I was alone. I wasn’t alone, really. I was surrounded by people that love me, and make me laugh, and I had my kids there, and there was life and laughter and music and conversation all around me. But as the fireworks burst in the sky above me, and I lifted my face to see them, I suddenly remembered Ben. My thoughts were painted by the memory of my last 4<sup>th</sup> of July and the way his handsome face had been illuminated by the lights, the way they shone in his blue eyes like the moon on the ocean. I could hear nothing, I could feel nothing, I just looked down at the ground and shook my head. Wherever he is right now, I thought, whatever he’s doing, he doesn’t feel like this. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">When I came home last night, I tucked my babies into bed and I sat on the edge of my couch with my head in my hands. I remembered<a href="http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/eagles/wastedtime.html"> a line</a> from <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQQLDB2a8VM">an Eagles song</a> I once loved, “You never thought you’d be alone this far down the line, and I know what’s been on your mind: You’re afraid it’s all been wasted time.” What am I doing? How am I 32 years old and still growing up? </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I went to bed and stared at the wall. I asked myself “What do we do now, self?” and the answer was, “The project, I guess.” I went to sleep and woke up at 3:30 a.m. The house was quiet and still. I thought of Ben.</div>Jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17339022031680762090noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8125621727603315294.post-61574332048386164452011-06-30T20:39:00.000-07:002011-06-30T20:39:34.893-07:00Step One : The Book Store aka Turning the Light On<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:RelyOnVML/> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/> <w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> <w:Word11KerningPairs/> <w:CachedColBalance/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil5eIhgEY0_cJKvHfHhsRMjEWzwo5RDru1Oln-ClqrSmUTSbERFLujgCY65hp-kgBkYHpD4UjUdmddwg-XgIfwe2o2AdKlFLwqVYpSnmikrHR3mR3-E19RPmPP7BnLw8iME7zR7QOFFE11/s1600/IMG_1320.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil5eIhgEY0_cJKvHfHhsRMjEWzwo5RDru1Oln-ClqrSmUTSbERFLujgCY65hp-kgBkYHpD4UjUdmddwg-XgIfwe2o2AdKlFLwqVYpSnmikrHR3mR3-E19RPmPP7BnLw8iME7zR7QOFFE11/s320/IMG_1320.JPG" width="240" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">I didn’t expect my first Step to be all that eventful. I mean… it’s a book store, for god’s sake. I’ve done it before. It’s kind of akin to making a big deal about going to Target without my kids. While this is undeniably much less of a train wreck than going to Target WITH my kids, that’s beside the point. What I’m getting at here is that I didn’t expect my trip to Barnes and Noble to be life changing. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">However, I also didn’t expect it to be totally depressing. I thought it would be an easy one, you know? It should have been, for all intents and purposes. There were so many people there alone, there were comfy chairs to sit in and linger. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">First and foremost you should know that when I pulled into my parking spot, there was a man two rows down that was standing outside of his car, with his trunk open, taking off his shirt. He was not an attractive man. He took his shirt off, unleashing a lot of really pasty white skin on my eyeballs, then used the removed shirt to swab off his armpits and then wipe off his head and face. I might have gone face THEN armpits, but I’m a bit of a renaissance parking-lot-whore’s-bather. He then pulled a new shirt out of his trunk, put it on, and put deodorant on from his trunk too. I almost had sex with him, but I controlled myself somehow. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But I digress. My first mistake once I got inside was going down the self improvement aisle. I don’t know what I was thinking. I think I was imagining I’d find some great, quirky little book on going it alone that would be just perfect. Instead I spent about 5 minutes of my life that I’ll never get back browsing through Suze Orman, Dr. Phil and titles that actually included “How to Make ANYONE Fall in Love With You”. At one point I thought, “What man am I going to attract from this aisle?”, but I just as quickly reminded myself that wasn’t why I was there. As a final jab from life, I had to walk through the “Sexuality” aisle to get to where I was headed. Not a concern, life. Evidently I’ll be taking a break from sexuality. Pretty excited about it.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I got to Fiction eventually. This was my element, this was more within the boundaries of my comfort zone. I walked through aisle after aisle, running my fingers along the spines of carefully crafted stories of life and loss and love. After an hour, I hadn’t found what I was looking for. Jennifer Weiner and Jodi Picoult came and went, Nicholas Sparks haunted my footsteps. Soooo many novels are about love; finding it, losing it, needing it, wanting it. What about me? Where are all the novels where people are okay on their own? Where they are their own happy ending? Blech. I had reached a certain level of bitterness and mild desperation when the poor employee approached me. The conversation went a little bit like this:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Her: Can I help you find anything?</div><div class="MsoNormal">Me: Um… I’m not really sure.</div><div class="MsoNormal">Her: Well, is there something in particular that you’re looking for?</div><div class="MsoNormal">Me: Well… I’m looking for a love story, but it can’t be too happy because I just got dumped, but it can’t be sad because that will be too depressing and I’m already depressed. So maybe not a love story… but nothing with somebody dying, or having some horrible tragic life, or about people that are just horrible human beings. </div><div class="MsoNormal">Her: …Okay… so maybe something funny? </div><div class="MsoNormal">Me: Oh, no, I want it to have some substance. Something profound.</div><div class="MsoNormal">Her: …So… something profound that isn’t sad or romantic or tragic?</div><div class="MsoNormal">Me: Yes.</div><div class="MsoNormal">Her: …</div><div class="MsoNormal">Me: …I think I’m just browsing. </div><div class="MsoNormal">Her: (as she’s walking away from me really fast) Okay, well let me know if I can help you find anything!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It was about then that the Lonely started to set in. It snuck in like smoke. It began with my mind wandering to Ben. I considered that wherever he was, he was not having to fight this so fiercely as I was. I wondered what it was that made me so easy to leave. I pulled book after book off the shelf whose back covers gave brief tales of a person finding love, a person who never thought they’d love again loving, a person loving against all odds. I felt my shoulders droop and my brave heart began to sink. I was Lonely. I considered calling it a night, I had been there 45 minutes already, surely 45 minutes would prove the point, right?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">When I stumbled upon the (much too small) section of Tom Robbins books accidentally, I immediately sat down in the middle of the aisle. There were so many I had wanted to read over the years: Skinny Legs and All, Still Life with Woodpecker, Jitterbug Perfume, on and on. I sat cross legged on the floor and poured over page after page from each book I was considering – weighing the typeface and the prose. I realized somewhere in the midst of all those books that I didn’t have any reason to leave just then. I don’t have anyone to come home to tonight, I’m not expecting a call or a text that I’ll need to take. I am alone, but I am also untethered. I have no dinner time – I choose my own schedule. I can sit in this aisle, pouring over these books until this store closes if I want to. Or I can buy them all, hurry home and open one right this very moment and I won’t have to hear about anyone’s day before I do it. I won’t have to make anyone laugh or feel better or be comfortable before I can read them. There were people passing by me in the aisles, but I was alone. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I reminded myself, with gentle prodding, that ending up with someone is not just a matter of Who, but of When, and that this is not my When with Ben. I need this time and space, every minute of it. I am still a mess, my life and mind and heart are still riddled with chaos. I am still unable to stand without leaning. I can do better than this. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I grabbed a Harry Potter book, too. As much as I love the movies, I’ve never read any of the books. I took my two new treasures and found a chair in a corner and tucking my knees up toward my chest I opened one and began to read it. I spent almost 3 hours at the book store, alone. I took perhaps the smallest of steps, but I took it on my own, and that made all the difference.</div>Jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17339022031680762090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8125621727603315294.post-45330807048153564692011-06-26T23:01:00.000-07:002011-06-27T19:23:05.199-07:00Words from the PrecipiceI’ve had my kids for the last few days since I decided to start the project, so being “alone” hasn’t really been an option. When they’re here, my life is a whirlwind of movement and sound. I’ve been realizing more lately, watching from the sidelines as Ben takes our break-up as license to be pretty self-destructive, how important my kids are to my life and my healing. I’m pretty self-destructive myself, but having kids (more so than just having a spouse or partner) makes it so you don’t just have to keep your head on your shoulders because you are held accountable for their safety and well-being, but also because you are held accountable for your own. My kids watch me. They watch me eat, they watch me sleep, they watch me smile or laugh or cry. I can’t kill myself or cut myself or pickle my liver in vodka because I am the foundation of our family and I have to stay – even if a little stumbling and fractured – whole. Does that mean they make it effortless? God, no. Every breath is still a struggle, and I constantly have to remind myself that it will be so much easier to stay off of my knees than to try to get back up once I’ve let life put me down on them.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">They don’t lessen the pain, even if they are distracting. Some times all I want in the world is to be able to just sit somewhere quiet and breathe and shake out all the stress and pain and I don’t get to do that because there are baths and dinner and they want to sit in my lap to watch TV. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Today they went back to their dad’s house for the week and I am staring down the barrel of another week alone. I’d be lying if I said it’s not difficult to stop myself from trying to shove someone in the void. I want to have a man to be calling, texting, flirting, meeting me for drinks and telling me how pretty I am. At the very least I want to be filling the time and space with my friends. I want to fill it with anything other than myself, because that is the ultimate unknown. The ultimate vast expanse of broken, ugly, unlovable wasteland. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Still, for one reason or another, I have seen the project as a beacon for the last week. When I wake up in the morning and have that groggy realization that in fact Ben is gone, and the nightmare is continuing even as I wake, and my stomach turns and I begin to tremble, I think of the project. I imagine forging ahead and I have something to look forward to. I don’t just look forward to a momentary respite or distraction, I feel like I’m going to be able to do something real. I don’t want to just recover from Ben, I want to become so comfortable in my life alone that when the next guy comes along, I won’t be afraid to lose him. I won’t gloss over his flaws, I won’t lie to myself about how he’s treating me and if it’s what I deserve. My life will be strong whether he’s in it or not. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">For the first time, I am lighting my own path.</div>Jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17339022031680762090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8125621727603315294.post-58605623411583633862011-06-22T21:51:00.000-07:002011-06-22T21:51:01.727-07:00What is the Project?<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/> <w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> <w:Word11KerningPairs/> <w:CachedColBalance/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<div class="MsoNormal">The rules of the Project are simple, there is only one: Do it alone. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The goals are two-fold: 1) Stay single for 6 months. I’ll reward myself at the end of it by allowing myself a date on New Year’s Eve – to seal the year with a kiss and celebrate the year to come. And 2) Make my way through my list of activities – steps, if you will, on the journey to being okay with spending my time alone. I can add to the list, I can repeat items, I can skip around, but I have to do them all. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The steps:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The Book Store. Any easy start. The video suggested the library, but I’ve been needing to add to my own library anyway. My goal won’t be just to buy a book and leave. For the first time, I intend to linger. Find a comfortable chair, sit in the aisles paging through art books. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The Coffee Shop. Another easy one. Lingering alone at the local Starbucks should suffice. With a book, a cup of coffee, and a good chair in the corner, I can sit in the quiet and watch the people filter in and out. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“The Gym”. Well, the video suggested the gym, but I don’t have (or want) a membership so I’m going to go with what I would do if I were to exercise: a walk around <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Lake_%28Seattle%29">Greenlake in Seattle</a>. A 3 mile path surrounds the lake, where people walk, run, bike and skate. Most often in pairs or groups, but also alone, I think this will be the first time I feel like I’m really starting to push my comfort zone, but I’ll definitely just be dipping in my toes to test the water.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Public Transportation. Another suggestion from the video. I know a lot of people do this alone every day, but I don’t. When I do take a bus (I’ve never taken a train), it’s been to take a quick trip to work while my car’s in the shop, or with someone else. I think I’ll take the bus or train AS my destination, instead of to one. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Church. I’m not terribly religious, but as my life has careened downward out of control, I’ve begun to pray. Another suggestion from the video, I think taking a Sunday to slip in the back pew of a church and tip my head amidst all the people – yet alone – would be good. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Sit on a bench. Another one from the video. I’m thinking Seattle Center here, in the sun with a book, watching the people pass by. Kind of ala Forest Gump, which is admittedly dorky, but I think it offers up the chance to fall into an interesting conversation or two. I’m by no means shy.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The Woods. I fell in love with hiking while I was with Ben. I think it will be a good stretch to tackle this one alone. The quiet and solitude punctuated only by the occasional smile and nod at people passing the other direction. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The Movies. This is a typical date activity, or for friends who are out and about, but I always thought that was so strange – you aren’t supposed to talk to them at all, and you can’t really even see them. I’m going to be stretching my comfort zone pretty good with this one none-the-less. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Visit a Museum. Another typical couple/friend activity, this time I’ll be walking around among all the people, obviously alone.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Lunch. Simple, yet not. Nothing to really distract you or see here, you just eat. But I can’t rush through it, the point is to enjoy your own company.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Resist the Urge to Hang Out With Your Cellphone. This was in the video, though I know she was intending to mean “while you’re at lunch”, to encourage you to do what I mentioned above – enjoy your own company. I’m going to take this to the next level, because I believe that I am in some ways addicted to my friends as much as I am my relationships. I am going to spend a whole Saturday or Sunday – perhaps a whole weekend, untethered from my phone. No texts, no emails, no Facebook or Twitter. Easier said than done, this one is gonna be rough.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Visit An Unfamiliar City. I’m going to make the 4 to 5 hour trek to Portland alone. I was there once several years ago, and I wished I had more time to spend there exploring. I plan to trek the city alone for the day, walking through the parks, stopping in at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant for lunch. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Dinner at a Restaurant with Linen and Silverware. Dinner. Alone. At a restaurant. Enough said. I think I’ll even try somewhere new. Somewhere nice. I’ll wear a dress.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Go to a Concert or Sporting Event. I love both of these things, but so seldom get to experience them because I’ve always relied on someone coming with me, and when they couldn’t make it or didn’t feel like going, I’d just give up and skip it. I’m going to make this one happen, even if its way outside my comfort zone.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The Coup de Gras: Dance at a Club. Until You’re Sweating. This is going to BY FAR be the hardest for me. Being able to do this will be how I know that I am where I need to be. If I can do this alone, I can do anything.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I have chosen to chronicle my journey on this blog because I think it will keep me accountable for making the changes I need to make and following through. If I think even one person is following my steps and rooting for me, or waiting to see what the outcome might be, or who even is standing where I’m standing and needs to feel like they’re not alone – maybe I’ll stick with it. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">If I do about 2 a month, I'll be able to complete all of them in my 6 month window. I'll be out dancing in time for my birthday and get my kiss on New Years. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">My life needs to change. Despite what I’ve been trying to tell myself for the last 17 years, no one can change it except me.</div>Jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17339022031680762090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8125621727603315294.post-47086924186173588312011-06-21T21:43:00.000-07:002011-06-22T22:17:33.950-07:00The Origin of the Project<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">My name is Jennifer, I’m 32 years old, and I have never been alone. I have been consistently dating for the last 17 years, with no break longer than 2 months between relationships. And even THAT was because my boyfriend at the time DIED. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">We can go round and round about the many reasons WHY I do this. I may be a relationship addict, I may be co-dependent, I may just hate myself so much that the idea of spending time in a room alone with me sounds like a fantastic new form of torture. But I digress, the reasons are irrelevant to the project at hand. Let’s focus on the catalyst for beginning the project. On the long and winding road that led me to this point, let us take a look at just the final crushing blow to my lifelong pattern of relationship-cidal self-destruction.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Intertwining amidst the many relationships I’ve had, dating all the way back to that tender budding age of 15, was one man. My connection with Ben was immediate, intense, and unmistakably special. No matter where our lives have taken us – other states, marriages, kids, highs, very lows – a thread has always tied us to one another. My eight year relationship with my then husband led us both to believe that we were at an end for good. I was a faithful wife to Rich, and we were in love. When my divorce happened, Ben was living with another woman. Our ships kept passing in the night. Finally, a little over a year ago, our relationships at the time both unraveled simultaneously. Finally, we had our chance to try again. Without going too on and on about the whole thing, the relationship felt epic, I was deliriously happy. The underlying problem was always there though: Ben (for reasons I will not elaborate here, as they are not mine to elaborate upon) was even more commitment-phobic than the average man. This isn’t to say he wasn’t faithful, or loyal, or loving, because he was. But you take a divorced mother of two (my kids are 9 and 6) and set her up with a guy that has thus far had a “no single moms” rule, and you’ll run into problems. He wasn’t big on responsibility, commitment, or settling down. But it was ME, you know? He was going to try, because it was ME. And try he did. He really put his back into it. He did the zoo, he helped us decorate the Christmas tree, he watched TV with my daughter in his lap, he was ON. BOARD. Which is probably why I got comfortable. And that level of comfort is probably why I got antsy. I didn’t want marriage (good Lord no, I’m not sure I ever want to get married again. Been there, done that, and all I got was this lousy bankruptcy), I wanted him to move in. After dating for roughly a year, I started applying pressure about shacking up. I was giving him another year, is what my statements added up to. He could have another year of freedom, and then it was time to leave his bachelor pad (it was a really nice bachelor pad too) and come be step-daddy and we should probably start talking about having a baby too and what kind of car should I buy and should we get a dog?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">As you can clearly see, I assumed “I don’t want to get married” equated to “I’m not demanding a commitment from you” and I let the rest fly. When he said he wasn’t sure, my insecurities kicked in, followed quickly by that sickening need to pull him closer, hold him tighter, where are you going don’t leave me LOVE MEEEEE. I’m not positive so don’t quote me here, but I’m pretty sure it was SEXY AS HELL. So imagine how shocked I was when he left me. After 17 years of waiting, after a year of being the happiest I have ever known myself to be capable of, it was over. (Well, I mean… “over”. It’s us. We don’t really do “over”.) </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">I have thus far proved myself incapable of being alone. I never learned how to do it, and now it is like a terrible wasteland that haunts me in my dreams. Being incapable of being alone meant that when Ben needed space, I couldn’t give it to him. I literally wasn’t able to. I could leave the room, I could leave the house, but I couldn’t leave alone the idea that we needed to shack up and fast. Living alone seemed alien and lonely to me, and I wanted him to hurry up and fill the void whether he was ready to or not. Ben loved me very much, I believe he still does, but he couldn’t match the pace I was setting for him and he refused to be dragged by my frantic horse through the dirt so I could get there. If I had been okay with who I am on my own, Ben wouldn’t have gotten the pressure I placed on him, and I don’t think he would have left. Ben has been the great love of my life, and facing the loss of him leaves me realizing just how out of hand this whole thing has become.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Now whether Ben comes back, or I find Mr. Right somewhere else, or I live the rest of my life alone is beside the point. I absolutely cannot be happy if I don’t find a way to be happy on my own. To be comfortable in my OWN life, and my OWN skin. I don’t know who I am when I am standing anymore, because I have spent the last 17 years leaning. I am not even my own woman anymore, I am just a Frankenstein of the corpses of my relationships; I am the bits and pieces of what was left along the way. Today someone offered to set me up with a great guy. I turned them down quite bluntly and said I didn’t want to date. They said “The best way to get over someone is to get under someone else.” I said, “I’m a fucking mess right now and I don’t want to meet Mr. Right because I don’t have a damn thing to offer him at the moment.” That probably sounds very sensible to you, but that is incredibly uncharacteristic of me. I tend to find a back-up plan as soon as I feel my current guy edging out. By the time he’s out the door, I’ve been chatting up someone else on the regular for weeks. I’m telling you, my baggage is SEAMLESS.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">For the last month I have been grieving Ben. It’s hard to get out of bed, it’s hard to go to work, it’s hard to focus on my kids. Hell, it’s hard to just eat. I know part of that is because I loved Ben so much, and I miss him so much, and because it is normal to grieve losing something that means such a great deal to you. But I also know that a big part of that is because I am having such a hard time being ALONE. Now, I’m a pretty girl. I’m thin, blonde, blue eyed, I have a high wattage smile and an ass that won’t quit. Having such easy access to men is one of the reasons I have such a hard time staying single – the wolf is always at the door. So I have to make a very purposeful, calculated effort to be single. Thus far, when a handsome man turns on the charm and asks me out I have followed the addiction to whatever end. I don’t want to do that anymore. I need to be alone for a while. The only problem is I have no idea HOW. I have no comprehension of finding happiness in being alone. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">To me, alone equates to one thing, to one word that is perhaps the most confidence shattering, heart breaking word I know: Lonely. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">God, just typing that made my palms sweat. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">I have been asking myself since the split, simply begging myself really, for 6 months. Please, just 6 months. To try yourself on for size. To feel out who you are when you’re not living for someone else. To see what you’re capable of. 6 months. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">The loneliness closing in has done nothing but make that feel absolutely unrealistic. “6 MONTHS?! OF THIS? Are you batshit?! Where’s okcupid, let’s knock this shit off and get real.” Today, I was hit by a bit of inspiration that I’m guessing many of you (how cute that I say “you” as if I think anyone will actually read this blog) have seen before: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7X7sZzSXYs">How To Be Alone.</a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">And thus the project was born. The goal is to reach a point where I am okay being alone. Where I can do those things that I love and want to do without having to have companionship, where I am the only companion I need. Where I need not turn my head to speak the words of something’s beauty or charm, but simply know them and be at peace in knowing them. The project is to be willing to embark upon life without the help or hindrance of any other. The project is about baby steps out of my comfort zone and into something that is essential to my being happy. The project is to be able to know who I am, so when the day comes that I offer that to someone, I know the importance and value of what I’m offering.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">I have written a list of things I am going to do on my own. Some are from that video, small things, like going to a coffee shop or the library, and that is where I’ll begin. But I’ll get more daring; the point is to push myself to do without another those things that I have taught myself people shouldn’t do alone. I hope to give myself some purpose, some distraction from my grief, something constructive to do with my time (because thus far I have found that no matter how many glasses of wine I race to the bottom of, no answers are to be found there) and most of all, hopefully, to learn that although I am alone that does not have to mean that I am Lonely.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">This blog will be a chronicle of that journey. Godspeed, stupid messed up heart. </span></div>Jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17339022031680762090noreply@blogger.com0