dear loyal reader:
i’m not sure who you are, but i imagine you know all about what is going on in my life recently, i.e., you don’t need to be reading this to know about my life because you know it already. let’s just sum it all up with big life lesson learned, hopefully not much cynicism obtained. oh wait, you know me already. so, well, no crippling cynicism added to my current account of cynicism. “welcome valued customer, would you like to make a withdrawal today?” “why yes, this guy told me i was attractive today. i’d you to debit some cynicism from my account so i can actually BELIEVE him!!”
lame.
anyway, to my loyal reader, i apologize for not adding any fascinating new content, any deep, enlightening visions to the depth of my soul, extrapolations to all souls. i’m working through – i’m not pausing long among the feelings, not even the empowering ones. it’s functional – it’s coping. it’s day to day. i am keeping a journal, but unfortunately my cynicism balance will not pay for home internet. damn those internet service providers – can’t make change for a chip on the shoulder!! most of the journal entries are truly drivel. i read through beginning ones, thinking what a wimpey hormonal romantic girl i was. ugh, yuk. then i realized one of the most recent ones discussed how i managed a sleepless night by pretending mr. man of my dreams was snoring, i mean, sleeping, solid, warm and real, in the cold vacuosity beside me in the giant king size bed. giant king side bed made even giant-er by the fact that i’ve lost 35 lbs since june. well, i guess i should say 250 lbs, to include the husband who used to be there. (yes, all you eligible bachelor readers out there… i am selling my soul if only you’ll find this body attractive. HAHAHAHHHAHAHAHA. and yes, jealous female readers out there, that 35 lbs is the size of your 3 year old toddler. and to help you be not so jealous, i’m probably still fatter than you are. oh boy, i’m so cynical… btw, i’m just kidding. frankly, at this point, i can’t give a rat’s ass. yet more cynicism underlying that statement, i’m sure.) point being, i’m still a wimpey hormonal romantic girl. ugh. yuk.
oh loyal reader, i imagine you revel in my parenthetical expressions. oh loyal reader, i imagine my whipping wit and, well, cynicism, are so very … enjoyable. and honestly, i adopt it right now because i’m trying to just manage each day. it is the fuel i need to keep me from feeling rotten in sheets made in denmark. deep underneath, protected, is the me who still longs, feels, revels. less deep, right beneath the surface is the hopeful, the grateful, the sweet and caring person i will always always be, no matter how hard i try not to be, no matter how many times i’m thwarted. my dad told me yesterday that i needed to grow a set, that i was grown and i needed to just tell people my mind, that i needed to follow my path to where it would lead me, or something rather close to that. i am, i am, i am. if he knew me better, he could see i am. i am no one’s victim. i am part of my own problem. i am ok with that. i am moving on.
dear loyal reader, thank you for taking the time to bookmark me.
this is the diary of a divorcing woman.
i will try to keep you better apprised of this all as moments i’m proud of pass.
love
~me

her avatar is salome. the seductress who will weave a dance of perverse, dangerous pleasure to get her wish. that is probably beyond him, but she wove her dance and had him begging, would have had him wrapped around her finger, at least that’s what he keeps saying. she wished him to want her, to trade in a marriage for her. she got her wish, then coyly batted her eyes at her own power, at his interest, at the impropriety of the situation. she had him writhing in the pain of her distance, her “decency.” somehow oblivious to the game she was playing, he had crawled in after she sent him lusty pictures. her prey, that she would devour whole. her game backfired, and he has run away. as he licks his wounds and begs me to draw out their poison, i can’t help but think: poor man. if only he’d known the lesson in the name of her avatar. when you play with illicit lust, you gamble until your hands become tied, and someone’s head has to end up on a platter…

i’m sitting in the same place, and remembering how broken i felt. it’s been almost a month. my train made an unexpected stop, booted me off, and everything disappeared in a blink. until i got away. and realized, what really matters, deep within, and without, did not disappear. something broke, certainly, and i was forced off the path of least resistance. i knew the path of least resistance wouldn’t help me grow. without adversity, i would never have a chance to prove who i have become, and continue to become more. i think back on my inability to sleep, on the rock of sorrow in my stomach, the fear creeping up my limbs. i thought that would be forever. the pain of loss would chase me. and it did. but it got quieter. it backed away. as my body began to realize i would wake each morning, and care for my children, and continue on my path, whatever it may be, the loss seemed further away. i started to feel calm. peace. release. i’ve held on to anxiety too long, blaming every one of his faults on me. now, they aren’t mine. no tension. i am. pretty close to ohm.

back in these same 4 walls, what was once home, i’ve been busily packing up the sundries of the old life, preparing for the new. the superfluous is culled, the useful and necessary catalogued in my head and packed safely. i thought that as i slowed down, i would feel the brokenness, the pain. my plan to keep myself forever busy and never face any emotion contained herein was thwarted by a sick toddler and a sickening child. i sit, holding a half comatose infant unable to rest outside my arms, and i’m still. i’m facing it all now, and feeling the expected twinge of pain, but nothing i can’t move beyond. i’m not riding the roller coaster anymore… i’m sitting aside, watching him ride, waiting for him to decide if he really wants to get off. i don’t think he really does. i’ve been waiting for so long, and i’m not a fan of the waiting place. i’m taking steps away, still within his calling range, still within his sight. still with love i can’t understand radiating to him, wanting him to be happy and safe. wanting him to become who he is, instead of stalling himself. i have to become who i am to become. i can’t allow the waiting place to hold me any longer.

what is ahead is beyond my sight, but ahead i must move. i can never have back what was, and that no longer hurts. i’m focusing on becoming. it is time.

i love you

i’m a witch, i’m a bitch, i nag and i snag
tearing apart the time you have free to be
or not. to be empty, to escape. to enter a haven.
i’d make a terrible 50’s housewife, and i’m nothing to be cravin’.

i’m self involved – i think most about what i want, what i “need,” what i think is right.
like why can’t you wake up earlier, and why can’t you spend more time with us, and why you can’t eat the leftover food
and why you can’t let go of anger, and why you have outbursts, and why it’s ok to act like you do when you are in a bad mood
and why i’m not your haven. why you don’t need me. why love isn’t what i thought it was. why romance is dead. why you and me?
and why… why… why.

i try to be different. i try to have compassion.
i try. try. try.
then that evil in me awakens, attacking what seems like a lack of passion,
saying that you aren’t trying.
that you are just existing, subsisting. on someone else?
i need to be spying.
you must be hiding something, or why wouldn’t you want to be with me more.
why should i try, it says, when you don’t? what is it for?

for it forgets how hard you work. and how much you need you time. even if i don’t get much me time,
or we get much we time. is it a memory we did before?
you deserve you more.
i know you don’t cheat, and you hide only from my judgment.
b.c i’m an evil bitch. a perfectionist, idealist, evil
female who has to have it her way no matter what is spent…

i don’t know how you put up with me. i am crazy. i am sane. i’m evenly contradictory. i’m perfectly imperfect. i’m easily difficult.
i’m unassumingly demanding. i am darkness. i am light. i breed peace. i pick a fight.
i’m emotional. i’m hormonal. i’m calmly intense. i think only i’m right. because of course, only i’m right.

sometimes i don’t know why i love you. all the time, i don’t know why you love me.
sometimes i think we must be confused, and only destined to destroy each other.
sometimes i’m scared, i thrash at the loss that has come, that chiseling of myself to fit with you.
but always, always, always, even in those sometimes, i love you.

i love you.

1/20/09 = 8 yrs

i can’t sleep. i think some part of me knows that once i’ve slept, the day is done, it won’t snap back to something like before, it can’t be before today. time will always be measured by this day. if i never sleep, this day never ends… i have a chance to fix it, to beg it back, to undo what’s done.
to know that it’s hopeless, whether i sleep or not, keeps me from sleeping too. blaming myself, and i still can’t fix it. i want to scream out like a child, “it’s not fair. i want this – i don’t want anything else.” the adult in me knows that not only will that do no good, but that it isn’t entirely true. i do want this, i don’t want anything else, but it is fair. i’ve brought it down on myself by being who i am. by being who i am. by being who i am. by being who i am. it’s not a nursery rhyme. it’s what i keep going over and over in my head, the anthem of my loneliness. i think of how he’ll never be with me during a storm, how i won’t be able to roll over when i’m scared and find him there, to sooth my mind back to sleep. to calm my fears by his gravity, to pull me back out of nightmares into reality. how my smile i broken, and i feel empty and full. all at once. i know it’s been gone for so long, what we once had. i just thought it had changed, was changing, into something longer, something lifetime. i complained, and griped. and i brought it all tumbling down, self fulfilling prophecy.
my love is vibrating, broken string no longer tethered. it wasn’t perfect, but it was mine, i thought it was ours, and i thought it would always be there, for both of us.
it’s 4:30 and he’s in the other room, and i can’t even be with him in my fear, in my hurt, to calm me, lull to sleep. it is over, and all i have is my forever loneliness.

sounds like the beginning of a pneumonic device. wait, not, that’s a lung device… mnemonic device. every good parent’s child has a toy that the parent absolutely can’t stand. you know the one that, oh sorry timmy, we just don’t have batteries for it. it takes an adapter? no there is definitely not one that will work in the box of 6000 adapters in daddy’s closet. tough luck bud. you know the toy, every good parent’s child has one.

in our house, it isn’t so much that is it the keyboard, as it is the automatic music player on the keyboard. all day long, almost without break, it loops the same 6 or so children’s songs. i’m not sure where this keyboard was made, but the songs are all a little off – the background rhythm is a little off tempo, probably in an attempt to modernize “where is thumbkin”, et al. the synthesized glockenspiel sound is akin to fingernails on chalkboards, and i’m feeling like if i have to listen to another loop, another round of this, i just might swear that they no longer make batteries in the size needed for this toy. every good parent. huh. oh to have peace and quiet, what will this good parent do? i think i’ll be removing some batteries once the chickens are in bed tonite… and i’m pretty sure walmart will be sold out of the right size!

i haven’t posted in a long long while. one would think the arrival of spring, the livening of the world, would inspire me, or at least wake me up. i guess to understand why that isn’t working, one must understand why i usually write.
who hasn’t heard writing is cathartic? really? you haven’t? so writing is cathartic – my specific catharsis is objectifying the emotion/thought i am dealing with, turning it out of me onto paper, and universalizing it – making it less mine. it belongs to the world, the paper, the reader of said paper. if these thoughts disturb the reader, that probably means they disturb me. they are thoughts that i “smile in spite of” in my real life, but in my written life, i focus and draw out. have you ever noticed that when you watch some movie, and someone is shot/stabbed/has a nasty splinter, the moment that hurts the most is the last tiny bit being drawn out? not the first 6 inches of blade, but the last 1/4 inch brings the gasp of pain. it’s a nifty metaphor… let me twist it to my purpose. eh, the thoughts don’t, um, hurt or otherwise maim/pain most of my life… they don’t even color my life. “it’s just a flesh wound!” it’s only in the extracting that they sound so very deadly, and as though they must painfully maim my life. to tie in the reference in the metaphor, it is delusion to think that they don’t pain me, but i’ve found we all have that secret inside that no one knows about, and usually, it’s pained. pain is almost always at the pit of us, driving us forward, or backward, or sideways in an effort to outsmart it.
point being, i’m normal. (HAHAHA) but it doesn’t sound like it when i write. lately, i’ve been trying to write out some particularly painful thoughts – revelations, ruminations, cascading along and trying to tear down the veneer-y facade of “smiling in spite of.” maybe it’s just that i have so much free time in my mind during exercise, and i’m screaming to escape the bodily pain of achy muscles and burning bones, so i revert to emotional pain. like i said, pain, usually at our pit, driving us in some fashion… mine driving me to complete 5 miles, pushing a stroller, up and down hills, and through miry gravel, in less than an hour without actually jogging. much. laugh as you wish, because you can probably do it. but it’s quite an accomplishment to me.
the problem with this ruminating is that it is so specific, so very me, that i can’t seem to universalize it, at least not without giving myself away. it isn’t so much one thing, but the culmination, or to go all math-ey on your asses, the aggregate of experiences, that make up me, that have brought me to this point. it just doesn’t lend itself to generalization. i can’t disown it… it’s bloody mine, bloody hell. and that means, i can’t write it out of me, which means, other than this vague description of the situation, i can’t write about it. i think it’s something about a culmination, the tip, the last 1/4 inch, that screams “ouch, that’s me under there!” i’m lodged there, crying “pull it out! pull it out! wait, no don’t pull it out! don’t! don’t! no. yes. pull it out!” waivering, as i always do. i can’t make it yours. it has to be mine. i have to own it. i have to own up to it.
and that is the block over which this writer is stumbling.

i watched this on hulu tonite. i should probably be embarassed to admit that, because at least on it’s surface, it was smut smut smut. however, i became wrapped up in the story – it spoke alot to my thoughts about women, and men, and relationships.

firstly, that women are godawfully mysterious creatures. i am a woman, for anyone who falls upon this without knowing me. we are driven by so many things, so many feelings, desires, intuitions, both from within and from without us. i think in many instances, we are so sensitive to others desires, expectations, we are almost powerless to deny other people. their desires, expectations, become our own. this tangles and holds us up, and i find that, at least of myself, we become contradictions. beautiful, tragic, melodic, contramelodic contradictions. i think sometimes, we seek that out, to remain mysterious. mystery is power. we are knowing, we are cunning, and we seduced adam to take the apple. there is no doubt in my mind of this…
the main female character is this movie embodies this feminine need to have mystery, to have some secret, to have a piece of herself all to herself, unshared and unknown. once she has become “an open book” in her relationship with her boyfriend, once she has shared all her secret places and thoughts and feelings, and he managed to stay, she had lost that mystery. she needed to regain it, to remain who she was… to regain something in herself. so she had an affair, with some ripped eye candy she met on the street, with someone so unlike her boyfriend that he could be totally secret. she had to regain her wildness, her untamed places. and to me, that made so much sense (not that i would do such a thing!!!!)

of course, it got complicated. both men ended up loving her, and the regaining of her wildness brought shadows to her life. the boy toy on the side wouldn’t let her go, wouldn’t let it end. the boyfriend wanted to marry her. she couldn’t undo what she’d done, and she couldn’t end it. she’d already lost control of the men, and she began spinning out of control of herself, feeling trapped, powerless, and i suspect, undeserving of love, dirty and dark. so, she killed herself.
now the men in this movie seem unreal to me. i think i may have an unhealthy view of men. they both loved her, one sweetly, the other sickly. she of course needed both from one person. she needed someone to capture her good and bad, equally, but leave something unknown, uncharted. each of them had aggression, masculinity. but something about them seemed too emotive, too sensing. they got too hurt by her death. i guess it’s because i don’t believe men capable of being really hurt by a woman love, because i don’t believe men put themselves out there for love like women do. men put themselves out, vulnerable and open, for friendship, for a companion, but not for love, and not even for family in many cases. thus, it was unrealistic to me that both men be so broken by her taking her life. men don’t break so easily. i think if only they did, women would understand them a bit better.

i think what struck me the most in regards to relationships is that we can never ever have what we desire out of them. as women, we will always feel some restlessness, either from our man “not understanding” us, or not “feeling” enough, or from him being too “selfish.” we have to decide if we’d rather live with restlessness, or shadows so dark we can’t live with them. we can put ourselves in the harsh light, and examine ourselves. i think we’ll find we are far more selfish and desirous of power than we’d ever care to admit.

spring is coming, warm and fast, and i’m feeling winter, dead in my bones. there’s something missing, probably hormones, and i’m feeling a little like a tent about to collapse, a little like a hut caving in on itself under the flood. i can’t capture the reason, i can’t grasp the vacancy, like some thread dragging seam, if i pull, it will all come apart.

it isn’t that i’m depressed, although i sometimes wonder why not. the inner life is never the outer life, and thank god that the outer life isn’t the inner life. i think my soul will never be used to abiding within this physical trap, this amazing creature that feels and touches, but taints. it isn’t me, it is just a vessel, and yet, oooo, wow, it is me.

more later. this vessel is calling for rest.

Letting Go of the Familiar

We must remember too that the promise [of a life greater than death] was made not just to Abraham, but to his descendants as well: that is, to us! During Lent, therefore, we bring to God all that is barren and dead in ourselves, all our sorrows and our sins, trusting that God who gave Sarah a son and who raised Jesus from the dead will turn all that is barren and dead in our lives into new and wonderful life. But this means that we must leave behind much that is familiar….

Because we live in a sinful world, Lent itself must become a kind of separation. We are called to leave behind our old ways of sin, which make our lives sterile and condemn us to spiritual death. Yet these sinful ways are often so deeply rooted in our lives that it is painful to leave them behind and set out for the land of blessing which God promises. This repentance is difficult; but it is the price that must be paid if we are to receive the blessing which the Father promises to those who listen to the voice of Jesus. (Homily, 2002)

Leaving Behind the Familiar and Following Christ

As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea—for they were fisherman. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him. (Matthew 4:18-22)

Prayer

Lord, you call me to a life beyond what I can imagine. I want to follow you, but sometimes it is hard to let go of the things in my life that makes me feel comfortable, even if those are things that keep me from you and a more fulfilling life. As I let go of those things that keep a distance between us, help me to trust that you are leading me into a deeper, life-giving union with you. What I must let go of can never compare with what I have to gain!

Lenten Action

Take a risk and trust God. Consciously get rid of one thing in your life (either material or mental) to which you have grown accustomed but that serves as a hindrance to your relationship with God.