The Year of Effortless Power

today was a good day. i had an appointment at the Kroc center (gym). it was a mandatory orientation thing to get a scholarship to lower the cost of my membership. i now will only have to pay $24/month for a fam membership. sadly, that’s tough for me, now that i have taken on a large portion of the household bills since we split up. let’s just say im looking up plasma donation places to get thru my kids bday. it’s their 18th bday and i really want to do something special. but yeah, times are tough.

anyway, the good news is that during the orientation…well, first let me paint this picture: i sat there with bitch-face as usual. i feel bad about it, especially at like this charity thing. we can’t help our faces. but i have an attitude too. it’s so ingrained. it’s posture, it’s other stuff. it’s partly the way i dress as well, im sure. i know it’s basically a church, but i dont think they care that i wear all black and my hair is black and im white as a sheet. but when you put it all together, im afraid i stand out. when really, im just trying to NOT stand out. 

but while i was sitting thru the presentation looking haughty and bored but actually just trying to mask my social anxiety, i was flipping thru the catalog of classes. and i started to get this weird feeling. like, i guess i was maybe imagining a world without my ex and without my kids even, where im not howling in an ever-deepening vortex of abyss. instead, maybe taking a yoga class. or joining the knitting circle they host on tuesdays. or something. i think this is what i need to do, well, someone told me yesterday this is what i need to do. but i didnt  know what she meant until i was sitting there with all these options presenting themselves.

plus i ate well. altho it occurred to me that ive been lying to myself again. i am doing an abstinence plan that is no sugar, no caffeine, no dairy + 3 meals a day, no snacks. first, i started having tea before bed, which can’t count as a snack. then i started to add coconut/almond creamer to my tea, which is very low cal, and not dairy. then i started getting Rebbl Matcha Lattes. only twice. but they have green tea (caffeine), and honey (basically sugar), and a little bit of heaven. so then, today, i was rushed after my orientation and stopped at starbucks and got — NO MOCHAS thankfully — but i got an egg & gouda sandwich thing. it’s only 350 cal. but it has dairy and the white bread, tho not technically excluded, is something i’ve been successfully avoiding. 

so im pretty much letting stuff sneak in. i mean, im sneaking stuff in. and not letting myself think about it. it’s pretty crazy that _I_ can do something while at the same time _I_ look the other way. wth. anyway, im not going to be rigid and “start over”, im still at 17 days abstinence, since the infractions were pretty slight. and i’ve already decided to make it “no coffee” instead of no caffeine, and allow 1-2 cups of organic green tea before 12pm, for now. BUT im going to quit it with the Rebbls and figure out something abstinent for those times im out and in a pinch.

but since i was feeling pretty encouraged by a vague image of a possible future before the eventual black abyss, i called Mollie. i dont always want to cry and moan, i wanted to share positivity too. she was very happy for my good news, but was busy. before we hung up she said something really nice. she said that there is something really amazing about me that is hard to explain, but it’s like even in my darkest hour, i always find a way to be raw and open. 

so i’ve gotten weird compliments occasionally in my life. i have been told i have a good forehead. and that the whites of my eyes are very white. i once was told that i really have a way of walking out of a room, which was meant as a biting insult, but i took it as a badge of honor. why thank you, mother, i do, dont i 🙂 but this compliment from mollie, tho i dont understand how she sees that, feels like a very real and great thing. so i felt doubly glad after that. 

on the way home, i thought about how i was only beautiful for one year of my life. 17 years old. before that i was either a scraggly tom-boyish hood rat or a chubster (ages 10-16). by chubby, i mean 20 pounds overweight. to some people that’s nothing, but to a white girl in the late 80s, it’s enough to ostracize you. at 16, i got dumped in a really eh, a bad situation. my mom was dealing with husband no. 2, who was a true skeeze, and i guess i just wanted to take control of my life.  like, i finally realized i could do that. i secretly started eating smaller portions. if my mom knew i was trying to lose weight, she would have sabotaged me and picked me apart. luckily, she didnt pay close enough attention to notice me eating less, or i would have most likely resorted to purging. i also started doing a Kathy Ireland workout video. i had the one video, i wore that shit out. by the end of the summer, i’d shed the 20 pounds. 

thus i entered into the year of effortless power. i was as close to a perfect women as i would ever get. i was tall and athletic/thin with an hourglass shape. i had a pretty, friendly face, long thick hair. i was bright, but not savvy. nieve, even. i had no self-esteem and was desperate to please. every man i met loved me. i got pulled over, no tickets. men randomly bought me shit. my groceries always taken to my car. they insisted. i had men, strange, random, creepy, old men, approach me in libraries and essentially bow as they offered me books they thought i would like. books about witchcraft and erotica. it didnt matter what i said or did, because no one was listening or paying attention. they were just looking and imagining. i remember getting frustrated because i would try to talk to boys in school about assignments, and their eyes would glaze over and they’d smile and nod in a daze. 

i couldn’t walk down the street without being catcalled relentlessly. i was already socially anxious and insecure as hell, so being approached was pretty scary. and rightly so. i was attacked twice that year. my skeezy step dad put the moves on me one night, after months of doing no-contact pervy shit, and at my boyfriends urging, i told my mom. she said, and i’ll never forget it, “how can you do this to me when things are finally going so well?” then they went on a walk on the levy to discuss it, and i sat on the couch with acid stomach. my brain was numb. i had no other family. i had no options. i wouldn’t have stayed in that hell house as long as i did if i had. my sister had been long gone and my brother had gone to stay with his dad (husband #2). my mom and the skeeze came back and he smirked as she said, “well we talked about it and…i believe him.” as in, i dont believe you. 

i was devastated naturally. i hid in my bedroom. i showered and dressed in the dark. (my instincts were right, it was later discovered that he had been video taping me in my room and the shower, which my mom was aware of all along.) after a few miserable weeks, where i was breaking down in class and just being totally erratic, i was threatened with suspension for cutting class. so i decided to reach out for help. thats what the teen magazines said to do — tell a teacher or someone at school. i told the counselor. they called a CPS worker and my mom and her skeeze, and we all had a sit down. it was brutal. i could barely speak with my mom there. after the meeting the adults decided i was lying to get out of cutting class. 

when i got home that night, as late as i could stand to stay out, there were black garbage bags on the front step. they had actually changed the locks. i took my garbage and went back to my car and drove.*

i ended up couch surfing with friends, as long as their judgy parents would let me, until i finished high school. i never felt welcome at their homes. i didnt want to waste their water or take their food. i got a job right away, of course since i was a dumb, pretty 17 year old, and with the unsettled lifestyle and some of my own money, i started going to fast food. i had gained 45 pounds by graduation. 

thus the window of effortless power closed. beauty, and being wanted for sex, is the height of power for women. and if i had been smarter or less damaged, maybe i could have wielded it more successfully. instead i just got run over and spat out, like so many young women. 

the weird part is, and im still trying to get my head around this, is that since that time, i have unconsciously done everything i can to get back to that. and i berate and castigate myself so harshly for every second that i dont achieve that goal. it’s not just a goal weight. there is this livid, hateful part of me that desperately wants to get back to that place, like literally go back in time, and do it differently. not be so weak. have the knowledge i have now and be ready for each and every  one of those people who hurt me. to combine the power of knowledge and inner strength (real power) with the patriarchically assigned female-power. 

but that’s so stupid. it’s so futile. its impossible and pointless. and recognizing that part of me, acknowledging that righteous anger, comforting that lonely damaged betrayed child, is really the only way to freedom. because we can’t go back, honey. we’ll never be her again. but, we dont need to. we dont need to fix it, or to even the score. the only thing we need to do is let it go.

let it go…

 

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Day 16: Breakthru Sun

I feel different today. Not sure what it is. I said before that i finally saw a light at the end of a tunnel — to realize this is a tunnel and not an abyss was huge — but maybe now i feel that light. idk. one thing im doing is trying to remember, really get in touch with the person i was before him. i look at pictures and think, i don’t know her. or i think worse things, awful hateful things that come from the regret and pain of right now. but if i step out of all that and just think. try to get back in that head space. no, it wont be exactly the same. but she is me, one of the hundreds of iterations of me, and i can remember. and actually this is practice for when my kids leave in september. if i can do this, my next challenge is to find a way to remember who i was before i had them. so daunting. especially since i was a disaster.

one of the ways I am getting in touch with pre-him me is with music, of course, right? it’s very complicated tho because music is HIS.  i think this is a good time to record how we met and a little bit about him and the relationship. we met on myspace! in august of 2006. we were both in a literature forum and started communicating about tolstoy, my fave. it was strictly a non-personal thing for a few weeks, but then his writing started to get to me. he has a way with words. he’s actually brilliant, in a way. he thinks very deeply in these beautiful and unique strands of mind. communing with that part of him is euphoric. it’s the best ive ever had. the deepest. those strands tho are so narrow and are totally disconnected. his mind is so rigidly compartmentalized, and his walls are reinforced a thousand times over. you can ride the bliss train down one of those trails and find yourself trapped in a nightmare of ambiguous hate and fear. brush one of the thorns, and the whole thing wakes up and starts to constrict. its horrible.

one of the areas in which he excels is art.  he is not a creative person, altho I believe he once was very much so, but he has a true gift for recognizing art. what i brought into the situation was long years of studying, and a passion for, literature and film. i have limited experience with visual arts overall, but threw myself into film, first in film school and it blossomed from there. i have experienced real escape and transcendence through literature and film. and in these areas, he and i were quick to find connection. 

in many ways tho we are different. where he is rigid, I am fluid. he is closed, i am open. in the very beginning he explained to me that he knew good art, and his opinion on that was unequivocal. that art is a real thing and “good” can be objectified and qualified. i felt that this was ridiculous, because art is an individual expressing an inner state, therefore it is inevitably subjective. a piece of art can do nothing for one person but then explode the mind of another person. maybe they can relate to something in it that the first person can’t. i felt, and still feel, that one person can never determine what will speak to the entire species.  i mean wtf? that bothered me from day 1. but, i couldn’t argue with his taste. he did discount some amazing films, and i think this is where i first started doubting myself and feeling inferior. i was resentful, but didn’t know how to articulate myself. partly because he was triggering old feelings of insecurity, and altho i am a sharp debater, he was as cold and slippery as a fish. manipulative af. i can’t count how many times ive legitimately wondered whether he is a complete idiot or devious as hell. i still wonder. irregardless, he introduced me to a hundred films that expanded my world immensely. 

while I was somewhat new to film, i was not new to literature. i have been escaping into books since i was 9. when i was 9 my mom left her abusive 2nd husband in the middle of the night with her 4 kids in tow. my sister and i were older and, since she could only choose 2 kids to take to the small apartment with her, she dropped us off at my grandparents, where we lived for the next 18 months. those months were traumatic for me, because my grandmother openly despised me. she was later diagnosed narcissistic personality disorder among other things. the family was well aware of her ways: she would pick a couple of favorites and terrorize everyone else. my grandfather was too afraid of her to intervene, so her house was a hellpit. her house was a meticulously clean hellpit, and children were not to touch anything or even sit on the couch. we were contained, along with her animals, in the back yard or garage during the day and straight to the guest bed at night. we were allowed no belongings, and our few clothes were kept in a box in the closet. my  mother was too busy to visit more than once a month for a few minutes, dropping off money i think. most of my memories of that time were of hiding under furniture. if i did interact with her, generally i was being screamed at, hit, or called names. however, the boredom under the table was a massive problem for my always too curious mind, and i started sneaking books from her bookcases. mostly westerns and dirty romance novels.

I was a sheltered child and learned a lot from those books. but escapism was the dominant lesson. it never ended. as a goth teen i became obsessed with the romantic writers. as a young adult, i delved into non-fiction works of eastern religion, 19th and early 20th century american authors, and eventually Tolstoy. his fiction stole my heart. his non-fiction woke me up to what one man could offer. he was the ideal version of myself, and i loved him. i felt a strong sense of self in this area. one that took my ex many years to dismantle. i eventually came to feel separated from literature, and i no longer read. his dominant superiority claimed literature as his. aside from a handful of authors, any book i liked, he knew more about, critiqued harshly, confused me. i started doubting myself. if i read a book, he’d ask to see it and dismiss it, he’d already read it.

it’s very hard to explain this. it seems like, “Who cares?”, but it was a constant subtle undermining of my connection to things i loved. if he didn’t know more, like with the aforementioned handful, he would insert himself there. he’d study the author, he’d get into forums, he’d research the history. so if i ever mentioned it, he’d correct me. and i would be taken off guard and not know how to react. if that happened once in a while, it would be fine, that’s just life and learning and that’s great. but it was everything. it was constant. it was like a thousand tiny tentacles ever so lightly and innocently severing every last ligature of my body until i was floating lost in a sea of confusion and an inability to claim a self or reality. i recognize there is a sublime opportunity in this, and i have managed to seize it in many ways. unfortunately, the destruction of my frail self-esteem has made it incredibly difficult.

music…is a whole other thing. sighhhhh. i think i have to explain a little more: my mother was a fundamentalist christian who had worked tirelessly to keep her children safe from the secular world. nice and cloistered in the twisted, perverted molester world of the pentecostal churches. the most succinct description I can give is one she repeatedly told me, somehow unaware of how nuts it proved her to be: when i was 2 she discovered my father had been cheating on her. when confronted he silently packed one bag and left. she scooped up my 4-year-old sister and i and went to live with people from her church. they counseled her to burn all of my fathers things, which she did.  every last picture. (might not have been that big of a deal if he hadn’t been killed 3 years later, leaving us nothing of him. but that’s another story.) these church people told her she was still too attached to things and instructed her to kill her beloved cat. when she couldn’t, they killed the cat in front of her, and she lost her mind and went wandering. when she was picked up, she was covered with sores and all her hair and nails had fallen out. she was admitted to the hospital, a mental institution, where she recovered for 6 months. during this time, she allowed my sister and i to be kept by the church people. i have had dark wonderings about what happened to us there. if nothing else it is a fundamental layer to the pattern of my life of being abandoned and unprotected.

she was released to my grandparents care. they took the three of us in. she was constantly in and out of fugue states and often wandered for days with bleeding feet. she told everyone that she was in the hospital because my dad had been poisoning her with arsenic. i believed this as a child. as an adult, i realize that if there was arsnic in her blood, it would have been more likely the work of the insane cult she was involved with. and i think its fair to assume that my dad left the way he did because he was afraid of her volatile emotional reaction, the same fear that came to rule my life for many decades.

back to the topic: I was raised for most of my childhood in an extreme fundamentalist home. one of the things we were not allowed was music. when i was 10, my grandfather bought me a small radio. i got a taste then. when i was 11, i was taken back to live with my mother and brothers, and the radio was confiscated. we were only allowed christian music, went to school at the church — if you could call it a school — and attended religious services 4 times per week in addition. she remarried a real sicko from the church. he abused us terribly with her as witness. when i went to the school for help, i was kicked out of the home: i came home, terrified of what they would do to me for telling, only to find two black bags with my things on the front porch. this is when life began for me.

I lived with friends until i finished high school. i stayed out all night, i met interesting people, i lived in clubs and bars and coffee shops that had all night music. i went homeless after graduating. i lived in flop houses and in cars. i fell in love with music; it was a huge part of the real world. it was a huge part of me, i realized. i listened to goth music, 80s darkwave, industrial, 60s and 70s psychodelic (mainstream), and some punk. when i got pregnant, i had to pull it together. i found a job, an apartment. i didn’t go out anymore. but, music was still so important to me. we were dirt poor, but my kids were raised with books and music. 

when I met my ex, i had my little soundtrack of loved music, only about a dozen were obscure bands, something that didn’t mean a lot to me at the time. but music is his deepest calling. i think in another dimension he could be some creative genius musician. in yet another, he’s a world-famous producer. the man has an uncanny ability to find amazing music. he has a relentless drive to search it out. and his dominance is most thoroughly presented in this world by “his” music. he collects it, like badges of his own worth, and plays it constantly. he wakes up: he puts on music. he drives: music. he goes to the lake: bluetooth playing music. he sleeps: music. our home became his domain because he always dictated the music. it was like living inside of his mind. or his mind expanding and encasing the home. “well, just change the music!”, you say! “put something else on!” and i did that! at first a lot. i said, hey its my turn. but when my music was on, he would pout and pace. he would never say anything outright– he’s too polite– but his body language and energy would be super negative, making things uncomfortable. so instead of being able to relax and enjoy the music, it became like a stand-off. playing my music became a rebellious act. a fight. and i hated that. 

and so I would fight less and less. I would go thru phases where I’d get some energy, and I’d kick up some dust, make a big deal. but mostly, i was so tired. and his music was really good. i loved it. within the first year, he copied all my old beat-up discs to an external hard drive. made sense. easy access. i gave my brother a garbage bag full of them. (he sold them for heroine, incidentally.) then the hard drive fell off the desk, and i couldn’t get it to work. it was going to cost almost $300 to have a computer guy pull the music off. money i didn’t have. i tried to list everything on there, but couldn’t remember over half of it. eventually, i never listened to music that wasn’t his. presented to me with his domineering stamp of approval. “this is good. listen to this”

and eventually, I just disconnected from it all. it was too hard. i was too drained with the other stuff going on, the sex stuff and the emotional roller-coaster. he constantly pushed his choice of books and movies and music on me. i was choked with it. i stopped liking movies, i stopped reading. i started driving in silence and tuning out his music when my home felt like a trap. and now i have an iPod full of his music. not a single song unconnected to him. we use google music on our phones, and it’s so hard to remember who i was before, and what i listened to. when i try, i hear him in my head, telling me whats good and what’s shit. 

so its been pretty silent around here. im afraid to play anything, because I don’t want to think about him. i have played a little reggae, because reggae is so positive and powerful it escapes him. and the ramones were always mine. he tried, but he could never get inside that. and I’ve been digging around online finding old favorites that he trashed, and i gave up on. 

I think its one of those things that time will heal. i have to believe I’ll come back to it. i’ll be able to read and watch and listen all by myself again. i’ll be able to say, “this is what i think.” full stop. 

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Day 4 Alone

I slept only 4 hours, waking at 7am with my left jaw dislocated from such clenching dreams. after easing it back into the joint, i laid back and thought about the dream. it was in my bedroom. i was laying on the bed. it was day. he was here, sitting on a table chair next to the bed. he was just as cold as ice, saying how he now realizes that this separation is for the best, that there’s no chance for us and he sees how truly fucked up i am. as he talks my anger boils, i thrash around on the bed and finally attack him. he is indignant and announces he will not be treated this way and leaves.

the emotions of the dream were so intense and horrible. yes, I clenched my jaw til the point that it popped out of place, not an uncommon situation for me lately, but i was so stressed and upset by the emotions of the dream that i could not fall back asleep and had a headache that lasted several hours. i thought about jung’s idea that everyone in your dreams is you. and how the him in my dream was me. how he announced his boundaries. some part of me wishes to be ice cold like that.

but the dream did answer my questions from last night. the questions were basically wtf is going on, why do I feel so turbulent, why am i so easily drawn into pettiness and pathos, when objectively i know better. the answer is that there is further betrayal possible. in the dream, he was essentially cutting me off completely. i understood that i would lose everything, the house, my animals. my income is from a pension that is insufficient for a family of three, certainly cannot support 5 animals as well. i greatly dread having to uproot my children and the idea of having to farm out my animals, or worse, send them to a shelter. i realize i am digressing, but being depressed for roughly 4 years now, i have spent most of my time with the animals and especially the dogs have been my only support system. 

anyway. I believe the reason i am struggling with moving on is the financial ties. most likely he will not cut us off. at least before june. i believe he wants to continue having a relationship with the kids, so he will try to keep things copacetic for their benefit. come fall, worse case…maybe i rent a room on a farm where i am allowed to keep my pets? i mean, it’s a possible option…?

I did feel good about the dream because it clarified for me the image i have of our dynamic. and it allows me to make a plan to be sure that nothing like that ever happens. i have, much to my deep shame, attacked him several times in the months following discovery of his infidelity. the attacks were symbolic more than anything, as he wasnt hurt. they symbol was for myself —

• “look at what you’re doing.”

• “this isn’t you.”

• “this isn’t working.”

• “you can’t make this work”.

that’s what they said. i remember several times being in an absolute lock down drag out battle with myself, my hands curled and trembling before me with an enormous and equal force both attacking and holding in the attack. it was truly bazaar and horrific. these moments, both when i failed and even when i battled successfully, are dark landmarks along the lowest valley of my life, and i hope one day to view them with compassion.

the dream showed me that things are not cut and dry and that’s why it is so hard. just because it is infinitely easier with him gone, doesn’t mean im in the clear. I need to be careful and plan. i deperately dont want to manipulate him even tho that is what young, damaged, vulnerable me would do, and even tho that is what he is eagerly hoping i will do. but i must make an honest plan for how to use this time in december, and how i would like to proceed once i see him on christmas. he will expect us to set up a different level of interaction — i think ! — and i need to decide what i want. 

right now I feel like never-never-never again. 

and yet, only 4 days into my month of no communication, I had to interact with him, first, yesterday, i emailed him a bill that he needed to see. when he didn’t respond i thought well maybe he’s too busy being thrilled with life, but then i remembered he doesn’t check his personal email often. so, due to the deadline noted on the bill, i decided i needed to text him. this is how that went

me:  pls check your email.

         also, i will need your correct address

him: hey (three heart-eye emojis) ok. (and his address)

me: thx (winking, heart blowing emoji)

him: miss you babe.

I need his address to send him his mail. i could have stopped texting once he sent his address, but i thought i should respond kindly to his heart-eye emojis. it seemed casual, and made me seem less pathetic, something i ranted on about yesterday. at least i thought at the time. but i probably regret it. oh well. at least i stopped there. i don’t know, pretty manipulative still. it’s so hard to not be manipulative when you dont have a connection to your real self. i read about it, but i dont know what it is. i can’t remember a time when i didn’t have to gauge my environment and adjust my behavior accordingly. my earliest memories are planning how to survive these people. my life has literally been saved more than once by my acting differently than i felt. 

which is sad. which is what this is about. no matter how much he misses me, no matter how he wants to proceed on christmas, no matter what I have to lose, i can’t go back. to him or any of the men before him. somehow i have to find a safe place where i can let it all come undone and see what crawls out of the rubble. 

 

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