What is the Law?

In the Free and Sovereign Nation of Stacietania, there is but one law: Show Up or Shut Up.

I admit I made that law when I was in deep pain. I had sold myself short for years (decades?) and allowed people to sooth me with words into putting up with less-than-honorable behavior. I don't want to pile on my ex here, because I still coparent with him. But we stopped being good for each other a long time before we divorced. The words turned out to be empty, as words so often are. We live in a world where people do not live with integrity. Weak people say things they don't mean and don't hold themselves to their word.  And we all let them do it because we have all felt that impulse. It is easier to say things than to do things. And so we all live with empty promises and empty threats. And guess what? It leaves us empty.

It hurt me a lot to live that way. I wanted to be in my strength. But as long as I allowed myself to be placed at the low end of the table in people's lives, I did nothing to honor myself. Whether or not I felt I deserved it, I accepted less. I played the concubine, but I wanted to be the queen. My power was drained away from me. In truth I gave it away. It made me bitter. I got angry.

At some point I hit the rock bottom of taking emotional abuse from the world. I set the rule for other people in my life: Show Up or Shut Up. To be around me, people had to be true to their word. Deeds were what I looked at. It was hard, because words are pretty and easy. I had to be willing to cut my circle of trust down to the bone. I broadcast my intention to put up with no bullshit.
Like I said, I thought that rule was just for other people. It was my protection against pain. People who were all talk had less access to me. There would be no acceptance of half-measures. I was a hardass about it. I learned to sharpen and hone the word NO. I used it to cut a lot of people out of my life that didn't have the strength to handle the new me. I chose quality over quantity. It sounds lonely, but it was fine. It helped. I got hurt less. Not to say never, but I had to learn that some of my hurts in life happened because I had permitted them to. I sorta hoped that the people left in my life would follow the law, and that was enough. Not exactly.

Stripping it down further, I realized that I needed to Show Up or Shut Up for myself. Romantic relationships were an Achilles Heel for me. I felt that in a romance I should be able to get my needs met more if I applied the law to people and held them to a high standard. I can see that it wasn't a bad idea, but it was a skilled archer with a good bow but the wrong target. My needs really are not for another person to fill. When someone else wanted me to behave a certain way to make them happy, I balked. That sort of codependent thinking was a trap. I didn't want to be solely responsible for another person's feelings. That didn't feel right. That was a bottomless pit.

I started looking at, and in fact made a list, of the things I thought a relationship would provide me. I could see that I was externalizing my power. There I was, all strong or so I thought, giving away the keys to my inner core. I thought that was what I was supposed to do. When I looked at that list, I started to see that there were some ways I provide those things for myself. For example:

• I wanted security for myself and my son. 

• Okay. I went back to school and got a job that would make more money
• I used some of that money to buy better insurance in case something went wrong.

• I wanted love and to not be lonely.
• Guess what? Being married to the wrong person didn't make me feel loved, and in fact was one of the loneliest times in my life.
• I resolved to spend more time with friends and my son and my pets.
• I wanted sex
• Crap. You got me there. I might have to have other people in my life for that.
• But not always. 

In the end, at the end of my last relationship, I realized I could replace my last boyfriend with a sturdy ladder and a good vibrator. It wasn't worth keeping that person around to get stuff off of the top of the fridge or change a light bulb. The depth of feeling wasn't there for me to continue with him. So I broke it off, because my soul wasn't being nourished by it. 

And he fired back by calling me a Selfish Bitch. Because he knew me enough to know those words would hurt me. 

I figured I would be alone. I was scared, but determined to make a life one way or another. Alone if need be. I wouldn't settle. Working on my Masters' Degree, I focused on the goals above. Make it better, more secure. More friends. More love, less bullshit. I would Show up and Shut up for myself. I would quit bitching and start living in earnest.

Then in the back of my mind I remembered that unique and amazing guy who said to call if I was ever single. He had ideas about what to do about that. So the craziest thing happened. I dropped him a text. I put my heart out on a string in the most vulnerable way possible. That beat up, battered and scarred heart that didn't appear to be worth much to anyone else. Not even to me sometimes. I offered it anyway.

It took him a day and a half to respond, during which time I figured it was just talk. Empty words. And I would soon be dealt-I figured-a crushing ego blow. I had called his bluff and he was going to have to admit that it was just an off the cuff remark and he didn't mean it really. 

Only that is not what happened. 

Turns out he was picking his own heart up, from where it jumped out of his chest and landed from my sudden, unexpected pronouncement.  And there was my heart, offered up. Only he didn't see it as a nearly ruined thing. He cradled it close and laid a healing hand on it. And that thing managed to warm him the way it was never able to even knock the outer layer of frost off of other people. I don't know which of us was more surprised. 

Suddenly, like every person on a journey to enlightenment, I had a giant epiphany. And one of such stunning simplicity. I needed to Show Up for him. What made this real for us both was me shaking my schedule and budget until both bled, and I few across the country. And he was waiting to embrace me. And we made it real. The one law I had created to shield myself from other people applied to me as well. If I wanted to be close to him, I needed to follow it myself.

My heart feels good for the first time in ages. Everyone notices. I am gobsmacked by how happy I am. I'm a delirious lovefool. The world seems to be a little less harsh because I have softened up. I set down that bitterness I was drinking and I feel better. So many different things are happening. I want to show up for the people in my life more now. My friends, my parents, my son. I feel centered and secure. I am slowly daring to feel hopeful. Yes, I give him a lot of credit for being awesome. But I had to allow it, too. 

Show Up or Shut Up is still the law of the Free and Sovereign Nation of Stacietania. It is a just law, that applied to all, brings a lot more peace than I thought. 

Return From The Dead

I never intended for my blog hiatus to be over two years long. After the gross trolling/stalking experience. I was just going to let things cool down and then resume my writing in this space. It is mine, after all.

Then things got busy. I went back to school. I moved a few times. Trauma. Violence. Eventually some tepid validation and weak sauce justice.

Then Trump got elected. I hid from that version of reality for about one day. Then I knew I needed to use my voice for good, or my version of it anyway. That makes me back in the game of being a general purpose agitator.

So many changes.

Truth is, I can't be me without writing, and the academic papers I have been doing for the last year and a half are not going to satisfy what my muse wants. Let's get real, who knows what kind of bait a muse needs? They are fickle little fuckers. Mine needs me to misbehave, to flood the hotel bathroom with bubble bath, to drink champagne and raise my Kundalini. I need to go Gonzo around at a time in my life that revolves being a single parent with a lot of responsibility.

So, welcome to what is not a rebirth per se, but perhaps a reanimation. I like Zombie imagery. They are a juggernaut. Mere death doesn't stop them.

If my muse shows up, then super yay! But I'm showing up. I intend to have shit to say. Jump in with me. Throw tomatoes if you wanna. All comments will be moderated, and abuse will, as always, be deleted. How about just being respectful of the space?

Subscribe if you wanna. Look back over the archives if you like. Suggest topics if you want to watch me rant.

Thanks for stopping by.

Troll Reminder

This is a public service announcement. This blog is my personal space where I can write the opinions I have about my own corner of the world, from my perspective. I post poetry, restaurant reviews, and other assorted silliness. The content is controlled by me alone.

As such, trolling comments and negativity are not tolerated and will be summarily deleted.

New Slang: Suit Farm

Just another Stacie-ism:

Suit farm: any restaurant where lawyers and investment bankers congregate in large groups.

The Fundimental Unfairness of Addiction

God, this is awful. Horrible that this exists. Some of the logic I just can't grasp or totally endorse. But so beautifully and painfully written. As the adult child of an alcoholic/substance abuser, I find my empathy strained. I have been hurt. I have been neglected and abused so that my father could use, so that he could serve the unholy twin gods of whiskey and cocaine. I have my challenges in life, but I have never been reduced to helplessness, and for that I am grateful. Truthfully, I want someone to blame.

http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2013/mar/09/russell-brand-life-without-drugs

Some artists have to contend with this unending misery in order to create. And then some get swallowed by it. My own brother went down the rabbit hole of drinking too much and I watched helplessly from a far distance as he went missing and turned up dead on the floor of his own apartment. I had said that he was burning too intensely to carry on for long, and rightly predicted that we would have to contend with putting him in the ground. The circumstances surrounding his death are clouded partially in mystery, but it is well documented by the Navy that he was having a major drinking problem before he died. He was 25.

I want to blame my father, or his father who schooled him in the ways of the bottle and emotional abandonment. I want to rage at the loss of my brother, my college fund, at my hopes for family normalcy. I want to show him how he made me feel worthless. I want to level these things at my dad. But then I look at him, and I see a frail, sickly, and finally sober shell of what my mom says swept her off her feet in hopeless romance. I don't see the man who wrote her drippy romantic, soulful poetry. I don't see the young man who pushed me on the swing as a very small child.  I see someone who, if faced by the full measure of my experience, would crumple like burnt tissue. He's there, burnt already, and holding his shape by sheer force of will. A whisper would scatter him.

Really, that dynamic, romantic artist is gone. Like the angelic boy soprano he was, when he hit puberty he did not mellow into a mature tenor. He cracked and was no more. He couldn't ever after carry a tune any more than he could carry responsibility or joy. He couldn't deal. He was a lead pencil in a broadband world. His capacity was reduced to nil.

I hear from him every few months now. I see that he is trying to be somewhat present in my life. He calls after months of forgotten or failed attempts to remember I am a part of his family. I hear his remorse. If I wanted to reconcile with my father, he is still here on this planet. I see his desire for my forgiveness. I blankly and without much feeling absolve him, my hands in a nonmagic gesture of benediction. I tell him I need nothing from him, not so much because it is true, but because I know I will never truly get what I need, not from him anyway. I am letting him off the hook. I have given what I can to him. I have thrown years of love down a dark hole to him, but he never took my lifeline. He only memorably told me that he wished I was born male so he could punch me in the face. No amount of telling me feebly that he loves me now will erase that. That takes bigger, more fearless and transcendent love that he just cannot produce or hold in his heart. I am left to work on it within myself. Despite being told I am worthless, I have to believe in my worth, love myself, and somehow forgive a man who probably was too wasted to remember saying that to me and shattering me into fragments.

Maybe only other addicts can really understand him, really help him. I am from the other world, with all my judgements and moral superiority for having never fallen prey to the bottle or the freshly chopped line. The hole in me mirrors the hole in him. I fill it with minor peccadilloes, perhaps. I am no saint. But somehow my need to consume Chex Mix doesn't seem to interfere with my ability to love others, although perhaps parts of myself. I am sometimes driven by the desire to be perfect, even though that conceit is the worst form of self-loathing.

But, lacking perfection, how am I to offer myself to the world? How do I consider myself worthy of the love I want in my life? I can bake a killer cake, save the life of a sick person, and even comfort the dying. But what if people knew that I couldn't save my brother? I couldn't heal my father? I couldn't be enough to stop the gnawing monster of addiction from greedily devouring the people I cared most about? Does it matter how kind or good I am? I will bet it does, to people with the capacity. But some people lack that. You can call down to them forever, and ultimately have to rise up from the chasm's edge and step back, lest you fall in yourself.

I am not an addict. I know I can go to Al-Anon for support if I wanted to. I just don't want my father's failings to define me.

I am trying to resonate with kindness and compassion in my life. This lesson is a hard one. It is going to take a lot more work. But I am alive today. I am aware today. I am grateful for that. The frustrated tears I shed over this are just part of the landscape. I don't have to be perfect. I just have to be trying to be good. That is enough. That is a lot more than others may have. Just by virtue of looking at this and attempting to unravel the Gordian Knot , I am better than I was on days when I merely felt sorry for myself. One day I will claim my destiny and cut the knot with one stroke and be done with it. Alexandrian solutions are not lost on me. In the meantime I hope I can at least see it for what it is: a yoke bound to an ox-cart. Just a symbol of what could be. Can I combine my conqueror's heart with the will toward compassion? I can try.

In which My Dream is the Literal Truth

     I just had an intense dream that I walked into an abandoned, filthy, house and found it full of sick and deformed people, all hiding in the darkened corners, including children with contaminated medical equipment jutting from their bodies. I was trying to help, but I couldn't touch one without getting swarmed by dozens. They were all hungry, thirsty, love-starved, and untouchably dirty.
     I was trying to bake bread, boil water, find medicine, bathe people, and soothe crying people, and was overwhelmed by the suffering around me.
     It didn't occur to me to just leave. I kept trying. I asked for help. And even though the throngs kept growing and pressing, I didn't stop trying to alleviate the suffering.
     In my way, in my waking life, I am doing this. But it is hard. I keep trying, but my soul could use some refreshing.

Legoes and Lunacy

Here's a rant for you about how old and broken down I am: I have been out of my Effexor for 2 days because the pharmacy decided they had to order it for me. I also was at home today with my 5 year old son. This is my day when I am feeling a bit emotionally edgy:
1. Jacob pitched a giant, GIANT fit about his shoes, because he wanted to wear the socks that are still in the laundry, not these other socks. FYI, there would be more of these socks available if he didn't leave the dirty socks everywhere for the dog to chew on and destroy and sometimes eat entirely.
2. Had to take Jacob to an audiology appointment for the school district because Jacob has an IEP. We were late because of the fit about the socks and shoes. The socks and shoes got put on/taken off and thrown in the car about three times. Grrr. Jacob has totally perfect hearing, but I have to have a long conversation about his IEP anyway, even though he is only Speech Only and no longer developmentally delayed. Woman is not listening to me. 
3. We went to feed the ducks at the park and it rained on us.
4. After getting perturbed at me for not being available when he asked, Tony is not available to have lunch with us.
5. Go to the post office. Don't have enough paper to wrap the book I am trying to mail. Have to buy a thing even though I had already printed the postage at home.
6. Take Jacob to Marshalls for more socks, but they don't have the EXACT ones he wants, so no new socks or shoes for him. We did, however, find a SpiderMan watch. Cool.
7. Take watch out of package, and the battery is dead.
8. Go to nearby jewelry store to get the battery replaced. Kid is all over the store, trying to go behind counters and open stuff he has no business opening. Grrr. 
9. Put on watch. Jacob now gives me the minute by minute update on where the big and little hands are. My eyelid starts to twitch.
10. We go get lunch. My contact lens, despite putting drops in my eyes, starts to freak out during the meal. Jacob makes the world's largest burp at the table, causing a grown man nearby to remark on it.
11. Go home and I am dying for a nap. Kiddo, not so much. He decides to go play with his legoes. He comes in every two minutes to ask me to find the one itty-bitty piece that will be the lynchpin of the tractor he is trying to make. Then the labradoodle vomits up a whole child's sock on the bedroom floor. I have a headache. I tell Jacob I am going to have a short bath before I look for the lego.
12. Kiddo now decides that he needs to actually watch me take a bath and make editorial comments about my body. Great. Yes, I do know that parts of me stick up out of the water. I stick my head under the water, but I can still hear him talking. I come up just in time for him to ask me about the legoes again. He has lined them up on the edge of the tub, pointing out that he needs another one like THIS one, right here.
13. I get out of the tub. I realize that playing with These things is NOT as I remember. Now there a billion teeny-tiny strangely shaped bits that have to be arranged exactly according to the diagram, or it is all wrong. I have a headache, trifocal glasses, and am a quart low on serotonin reuptake inhibitor.
14. I spend the next 35 minutes finding all the little itty-bitty lego bits and then painstakingly building the lego tractor and farmhouse. Little Guy watches, but doesn't help much. Unless by helping, you mean trying to jam his Captain America Lego Guy into the house, knocking some of it down, which must be rebuilt.
15. Dog flops down on the pile of blocks, and must be moved while not disturbing the Lego city. 
16. Hubby comes home, and I am ready to die. Not bad for a day off, huh?