Safe

Using cotton handkerchiefs through this virus has been a lot easier on my face. My lips are raw, but nowhere near as bad as with tissues, even the lotion ones. The worst part is the flashbacks.



When I was small, I had chores. Some I have no argument with, even if I didn't like doing some of them - helping with dishes, taking out garbage, sorting laundry, setting the table, vacuuming. But some of my assigned tasks were doing stuff for my father that really shouldn't have fallen to a little girl. Folding his underpants, polishing his shoes (I can still feel the ickiness of my hand in his shoe, the smell, the resentment at this weekly task) and ironing his white 'snotrags.*' One week my mother berated and punished me because I hadn't ironed them 'properly.'

How in the name of all the gods can anyone justify yelling at a kid for not ironing a bit of material perfectly, that is used to blow noses? Or even give that to her as HER job? When they belong to her abuser?

I do not iron my bandanas. I take some comfort in the fact that I used spray sizing on his, and made them good and stiff and scratchy. And I used a LOT of it, too bad it wasn't starch.



I've also been thinking of the times I was pushed, and how I reacted. The guard at the main library, when I worked there, who cornered me in the elevator and kissed me. I never got on an elevator alone with him again. Which wasn't always easy, our department was on five floors, and with carts and heavy materials it was my job to move, I had to use the elevator. I also spread the word, everyone knew what he was.

When I was in training at Ft. Sam, I would drink at the E-club. And I would often flirt with guys, letting the alcohol show more than I actually felt, there would be some snogging. One guy walked back towards my barracks with me, which was fine, we kept stopping for kissing breaks. I was enjoying it. But then he tried taking me into a bit more, nudging me toward a more isolated part of base. I gave him enough rope to convince myself he was trying to coerce a drunken woman into a rape. I stood up straight, clearly said, "No, thanks." and marched away briskly. I have the fleeting glimpse of the look on his face. Not that I'd intentionally fooled him, but he certainly fooled himself. But, had I hesitated? If he'd jockeyed me into a more vulnerable position? Yeah, it was a close call.

Self destructive as I was at that point in my life, I wasn't up for being a rape victim. That would happen later, except not legally since marital rape didn't exist, was not a crime in this state.


I don't polish shoes, iron anything (but the occasional tablecloth which is a pleasant job for me), fold underpants, and I have a dishwasher. Not to mention I'm safe at home. In every sense of the word.



*His word for them.

Dunning-Kruger

Thinking about a boss who figured "I'm usually an excellent judge of people!" when a string of hires turned out to be pretty & charming thieves and malcontents. And how my mother constantly commented to me, when I was a small child under her care, how she worried about being a "good mom" - to which I had to respond with reassurances of her skill, as though that was an unbiased assessment instead of an coerced one. (If she'd asked me once, as an adult, that would have made some sense, although still a bit of a fishing trip.) Also, the folks who say they are good at multi-tasking are often the worst at it, and it shows in their driving - as they text. Apparently, it is a typically American disorder. Accounting, perhaps, for the Canadian variation my mother exhibits.

Thinking about how physical abuse is the tip of the emotional abuse iceberg. If one had a loving parent with a spastic/seizure/thing that caused them to physically hit their children at odd times, with no emotional component, the child might be a bit jumpy about physical closeness, but would not (I'm guessing) feel abused, despite bruises. That doesn't happen, of course, it's a made-up situation for illustration. But I know when my demented patients took a swipe at me, I didn't feel abused at all. Nor when my drill sergeants screamed at me, utterly controlled and with no personal agenda, did I feel threatened as a person. Very different to be irrationally criticized and bullied at my only home. I began to want to be hit, so I could strip my sleeves and show real scars, just to be believed that harm was being done.

I hate thinking about this. I've worked through it. Apparently, it's like the arthritis that develops long after an injury is healed. Sucks. Enough drama. Condition of my life. Cause to appreciate where I am right now.

I realize that this is ridiculously anthropomorphic, even for me, but I think the house knows we love it, and are taking care of it, and loves us back, including it's new cat-household-god.



Suffering an emotional hangover today. Typical, I often crumble after the crisis is over.

Shock

For a long moment, I remembered, as clearly as if I were standing there, my father, in the midst of a long raging rant, asking, accusing me "Do you think I want to rape you?" I am not sure if I nodded or stayed silent, because he'd articulated my precise fear. But he then shouted, "If I was going to rape anyone she'd be prettier than you." My mother came in shortly after, and he told her "She thinks I want to rape her!" And my mother turned on me, "How could you think that?" I knew then how utterly alone I was, how completely I had to defend myself from then on. I was 13. I would never have thought, or used the word, "rape." Not at that age, it was so far out of my experience, unimaginable. I didn't make that up, it came from him. It still seems like the deepest, darkest place in my life.

This is not normal.

I tried to find this story here, but it didn't show up. Only hints and other stories. It seems odd that I had not written about it before. Maybe it's just not showing up on my searches. I could have sworn I'd written about it ad nauseum.

To think, he thought he was treating me "like a princess." Maybe an abused goddess' princess... . Well, you know how those old gods loved their incest.

Any wonder I couldn't grieve him? Only react with a kind of weird shock at his long awaited death? And my ambivalence toward my ineffectual mother? It all just gets too fucking weird, even after decades.

Portrait

The one way I know I was not middle class growing up was the utter lack of studio photo portraits. I had school photos, which my parents bought and gave to family, mostly wallet size ones for the aunts & uncles, and a 3X5 for each grandmother. Most of which I detested and would have preferred burned. My mother took some lovely Brownie snapshots of us as kids, in B&W. And every birthday and Christmas and vacation had photos, developed at the local drugstore and stored thereafter in old shoeboxes. I loved looking through them, with the negatives kept in the envelopes - although never used past the initial prints. Photos outside of vacations, holidays and birthdays were vanishingly rare. A few to commemorate snowmen, or new clothes, or rites of passage - communion and confirmation, the sparse weddings.

And I treasure those recordings of my early life. The spontaneous, if predictable, moments, illustrating my growth over time. No one else involved, no artificially strained smiles for a stranger in front of a bland background, instead - the reality visible on film. I've always had very clear visual memories from ridiculously early in my life, and I know that the series of photos have reinforced that. Not created the memories, but kept them alive.

I can only think that if I'd had to have professional portrait photos every year, I'd have rebelled much earlier in my life. I go stiff and awkward in front of a photographer. Only since I've had photobooth on this laptop, and have learned out to take self portraits, have I liked my own image. Digital images, allowing for feedback and mistakes, willingness to try anything, all I needed.

Thinking about family a lot, recently. My father is 88 years old. My mother 86. I wish I had a passable relationship with them, but it's really not possible. And I do feel awful about this, but not as bad as when I was in contact with them. I love living without a hole in my integrity, not having to deal with the lies and picking. But I am grateful for having been given adequate food and clothing and an excellent education, I really am. They came from a different generation, hard-core working class of the last century. I know I was the unplanned, surprize child, late and not entirely welcome. An added expense, rather than an additional resource. No anger, really not. Just the intense need for separation.

Likewise for my much older brothers, for whom I was at most, a toy, no matter that I idolized them. None of us were real people to each other. So, when they moved out, I disappeared for them. Now, in different parts of the world, we really are nothing to each other. A genetic similarity really doesn't mean anything. They are not my saviors, they are just guys with their own lives, and they have no clue about what I am, nor do they care, nor should they. And I have had to let go of my idea of them as "brothers." I have had better luck with my cousins. (Found out from cousins that no one really thought much of my father and oldest brother, and I thought them well liked, in contrast to my experience of them. Wow. )

So, here I am, happy with my aging phisog - one that echoes my aunts and mother, and completely alienated from my roots. I don't think I had worse than any misused child, better than many, but I had the personal will to say Basta! and make it stick? No money to go after, I'm sure that helps. Excessive ability to rationalize, and just decided that the logical thing was to walk away with the story of Lot's wife to remind me never to look back. "Let the dead bury the dead." Luke 9/60 bothered me immensely when I was ten, but there it is guiding me to this day. Not pretty, but appropriate triage. Probably doesn't speak well of my compassion, either. Once I decide and promise, that is it for me.

And that may have something to do with my mother's extreme irritation with anyone holding grudges, and great insistence on getting people together who held same. I felt that it was better to just leave all parties alone.

Maybe I just never felt any bond with either of them, so when the dependence was gone, there was nothing left but a non-existant nostalgia for the 'good old days.' A lack of attachment may be at the heart of my indifference, rather than level of abuse, since that was fairly moderate, all told.

This is a theme I expect will be a source of worry all my life, in varying amounts at different times, decreasing gradually over the decades.

Lesson

Nine-year-old Christina Taylor Green was born Sept. 11, 2001. She died in an attack attributable to the violent rhetoric that is fashionably dividing the world, although the shooter was certainly just a looney responding to the resonances. Her organs have been donated to a young girl in Boston. Giving life as she leaves. This sticks in my mind, this generosity of spirit. This small saint. This occasion I really hope there are saints and heaven, just for her.

A boddhisatva.

Let go of the hate that feels as good as heroin and meth, and ruins us as surely.

A lesson in compassion.

Turn away from the anger. If every one of us, each chose kindness over hostility, every moment of every day, we could handle the occasional mental illness as the aberration it should be.

Take the time to consciously be kind, start here. Gentle ourselves. Eschew the easy pleasure of ranting and raging, even, especially, inside our own heads. Think well of others, especially those most difficult, most anger-trapped people. They need to learn, they need to discipline themselves. Calling them on it it one thing, allowing ourselves high dudgeon, judging their souls, quite another.


Understand, forgive, add peace to the world, one drop at a time. Breathe in calm. Breathe out serenity. Every breath.

The simple acts are the most difficult. The most worthwhile.

Choose

Upset with an old friend. Not going to talk about it here. Of course. But let's just say that email is wonderful, but cannot replace the phone completely, much as I hate talking on the phone. And is no substitute at all for being there in person. I'm heartbroken, and doubting myself down to my core. And my core is very dire and dark. I am, at the moment, lacking family of any kind, and so few in-person friends to call it none at all. If D didn't reassure me, I would believe myself utterly bereft of human contact. And unworthy of it.

Much of it is my own choice. I will not be used or misused, and am either hypersensitive to misuse, or have chosen badly the people around me. Both, concurrently or sequentially, no doubt. The two misjudgments walk hand in hand. Grief following grief. Loss collapsing into loss.

At least once, I chose, or probably more accurately was chosen, beyond hopes and aspirations. I have no adequate words for the bottomless gratitude I feel for the wonderful human being who most knows me, and most loves me. Only in very dark mood do I doubt that.

Put up the tree. Made the mistake of putting on the blue lights we'd gotten after the season last year. In such a mood, I only put up the fairly colorless, blue or silver, ornaments. We tried to put the multi-colored lights up around the room, and the adhesive tabs failed utterly. In another mood, I'd have seen the humor. Within an hour, I looked at the "tasteful" tree, and said "That is hideous." Blue Christmas kept playing through my head, and I took all the ornaments off, instead of throwing the whole display in the trash, with D's assistance. After a moment's hesitation, we put on the multi colored lights. This helped quite a lot. I will likely add ornaments tomorrow.

Not easy to be cheerful, this year. Have to put in a lot of effort.

Worried about health issues, for both of us. Much is worrisome. Nothing definite yet. Which is good, really. Limbo.

Got tea bag mulling spices and apple juice. Unbelievably comforting. Got our christmas dinner, as well. Our one requirement, enough food on christmas.

Watching a show. TV et al turned off and on. Moby stepped on the switch. We both laugh.

Bones

When a bone breaks, it heals, reforms, remodels for years after. But it's never as strong again. Surgery shows- in the way the connective tissue reforms. It's never as smooth and orderly as they way it was originally laid down. The pain will ease, function will return, but the disruption is permanent.

My own little irrational belief, and a theory to explain some elements of stigmata, is that of any wound that heals, can at any age reopen. As can all our life's wounds, given enough distress. If you tell me this is not supported by evidence, nonsensical, I will concede you are right, but, I still nurse the idea as seeming right. I don't mind being wrong. But come here and let me know you think me stupid, or mock me, here, in my home, on this odd theory, and you get the boot.

My father broke me emotionally. Wild, illogical accusations, baffling feats of incorrect mind reading, all escape routes blocked. Then I went and married a smart version of him, thinking it was just the stupidity causing all that misery. I had no defenses against an abusive manipulator who could talk sensibly. After he hit me, he would always apologize, and say all the right, insightful phrases to keep me strung along, leaving the implication that it was all my fault, really.

I have grown and healed, but any kind of irrational challenge is far more painful than it should be. So condescending, accusing assertions, in this, my safe place to speak my own mind, rattle me far more than seems appropriate.

The troll who struck me three times, did, after I packed my bags to leave, offer a sweet apology, which I believe as much as I do those of the ex after he slapped me.

I will never be any kind of a manager because of this deficit. I can be extremely accommodating with people, even if they are upset, up to a point. But when the nudge becomes a shove, I simply have to stop myself from killing them. I have no middle ground, no place from which to gauge a reasoned response. I tried to write several posts to warn, to set rules. When that didn't work, I fell apart rather than finding those people, and torching their homes. I hate confrontation, so I prefer people to see me as dangerous. Deep beneath is a well of rage, which horrifies and reassures me.

Have I ever mentioned I know how to shoot an M16? And, I'm a good shot? Had to for the Army. Just, you know, stray thought.

I have learned real calm with D, and with Moby. The pain is less, it is not gone.

Thank you with all my heart for all those who comforted me, and kept me from throwing away the work of five years. I could have just gone to the new blog, but I would have deeply grieved this one. I am not ready to leave here.

I won't be chased off.

I will be far less cautious in deleting posts, without explanation. I will consider the invite only blog option, but that seems so cold. It's just that I had three trolls in rapid succession, one of them a personal acquaintance that I need to stay on some kind of civil terms with, on top of the Inspection at work, and impending move. Skin thinner than usual.

I will never go to anyone else's blog to question their beliefs in gods, astrology, makeup, Disney, creationism, Republicans or ferrets. I may well rake them over the coals, in general, here. They are free to rebut on their own blog, but not here. Unless they offer a kind, reasonable, respectful, response. Maybe not even that, this week, please.

Enough

I want to cry and give up and throw all this away because of a third idiot this week. After having gone through this twice earlier. The last one made sure I knew he had the last word by sending an even more insulting email by leaving it on the comments and then deleting it, knowing I would get it, but you wouldn't hear that he called me "crass" for shining the light on his attitude. And of course, it's all my fault, for being "petty".

Yup, defending my own patch is petty and crass. Expecting mere silence from a stranger who just shows up, uncritically reads the bits he understands, then attacks me, is silly. Not letting him hide his persistent defense of his mean words... ah, well, shame on me.

This makes me crazy. This has to stop.

Leave me alone, leave me alone, leave me alone....

This blog will either be moving, or going away. I can't do this, my stomach hurts, I'm crying. I don't need readers, I don't make money here, there are other patches. This one smells bad.

Rude

Why, oh why do so many women insist that being female is more important than being simply human? Why is femininity so bound up with surface glamour, decoration and display? Why do women make such a big, fat, hairy deal that other women have to participate in the petty cattiness of female politics?

I could as easily ask why men are so wrapped up in the rigid trappings of being male, with a terror of anything with a whiff of the feminine. But men don't make a big deal of putting me in my place, at least not these days. The graces that come with middle age, not that society has really changed so much. And, I have a much more masculine style, I cultivate an androgyny that embraces all that I am.

But women still want me to conform. As I strive to live as honest and authentic a life as I can, eschewing the surfaces, the illusions, rejecting the arbitrary trappings, I am pulled back and examined by other women. For telling a funny story about a woman acting in a flighty manner that is identical to parody of the worst excesses of girly behavior, I am called judgmental. Should hear what is said of the women who, against instructions, wear heavy makeup to have surgery, when it all smears off during intubation. I was being very, very mild.

One reader in particular took me to task today. I deleted her comment on No, wrote to her directly. I know her personally, but we are not friends. We have mutual friends, she and our spouses have been friends since childhood. She seems unable to separate her own interpretation of my words, from my real intentions. She made counterfactual accusations against me, while calling me "sweetie," and I corrected her, held my ground. She brought out the big gun, and a personal hot button for me, and called me ~rude~.

Now, rude is what my father always accused me of for not being the fluffy pink little doll daddy's girl he wanted me to be, for not being sweet and compliant and friendly in all situations. I was dark and moody, too smart, too stubborn. His intrusive rage was fine, my defense of myself was rude.

I suspect she means exactly the same. I could be wrong.

I have had to swallow so much of myself this week. I let out the real, raw me here, a stream of pure, unfiltered, undiluted opinion. Most of you who come here regularly seemed to be amused and entertained, as you should be. Two decided to take offense. Their comments could be interpreted as being against your opinions as well. (I am much more sensitive about the treatment of my guests than of myself.)

They have been addressed.

No One. Was Talking. To Them.

Was I rude? I was blunt. Not rude by masculine standards. I told the truth as kindly as I could. I was not friendly, but I don't consider that any more of a virtue than pretty. Great if you have it but I don't, so I make do with what I have. I could have been rude. I could have told each of these people exactly what I really think of them. I did not. I couched my terms, I did not indulge in contempt. I tried to stay factual and reasonable. I may not have succeeded. They are free to think I am rude. I would not presume to tell them what to think, or assume I knew what they felt.

I only wish they had accorded me the same courtesy.

We've had another one. One who thinks their own opinion isn't like an asshole. (We all got one, and they all stink.)

But this is my blog, like my home. I can say whatever I want, I can challenge any opinion, and you can disagree quietly or leave. If you chose to take personal offense and speak up, I will expect you to leave and not return. In no small part because most of the people who come read here agree with me, and when you insult me, you also insult them. I feel so pressured by the society around me to keep silence, this is my only place to really speak my mind. I will not be told I am being judgmental here. Especially not without being offered reasoned discussion, but only reactive emotionalism that I have already addressed in the essay.

I can even quote myself. Thusly.

"If that still offends you, then maybe you have come to the wrong blog. You cannot silence me here. I will not tolerate being insulted here. I spend most of my life around people who disagree with me. I do want yes commenters here, actually. Civil folks who are not going to come into my little corner and tell me I'm pushing my opinions on others. Rebut on your own blog to your hearts content. Call me whatever you like there."

Leave

Bully.

Leave.

Zero tolerance, after the third person who didn't like something I said, and decided to insult me on my blog.

Feel free to express your own, different, opinion.

But if I offend, just leave without comment. I don't need your chiding.

If I didn't think I was smarter than most people, I would hardly try to be a writer. This is my place to rant, if I write something that doesn't fit your nice, gentle opinion of me, too damn bad.

I am not nice. I am tough and difficult and flawed and angry. I am a bulldog, and I bite intruders.

Any more self-defensive attacks on me in the comments will be deleted. Immediately and permanently. Again. Go away. I have every right to be bitter, nagging, smug and a bitch, here on my blog. And you are free to delete your links here and mind your own fucking business.

Justice

With great intended compassion, this kind comment was made on a recent post,

"please don't say that you made this mess because of bad choices etc. sometimes one does not know any better and/or things get screwed up. The stupid patriarchy is to blame for for instance not making an escape possible without any help from outside...your inattentiveness or bad choice still not gave him the right to treat you this way..."



I lose nothing by taking responsibility for my own actions. Quite the opposite, I learn. I made this mess, it's my lesson, and I will not allow kindhearted intentions to ease pain, and thereby steal my hard won knowledge.

My accountability does not take any responsibility away from the ex's actions. Justice is not a finite quality that must be divided, parceled out in due proportions. I am wholly responsible for myself, he for himself. I can only speak for myself. I made a mess. I clean it up, and I benefit from my experience, I get the exercise, the sense of accomplishment. It's not a competition, it's my one and only life, and I will not relinquish my choices for ease.

I will not be victim. Wronged, harmed, yes. Not victim. He is to be pitied, I am not. I refuse any kindness that makes me victim.

I will not blame impersonal institutions, ignorance, nor passive voiced happenstance, because then I do not derive the benefit of the lesson. How can I avoid making the same mistakes again, if it is all another person's fault, just one of those things, all because of those men? I must take the pain of it in order to wring every drop of wisdom out of it.

Yes, our social institutions need vast improvement to provide better options. But I am not in politics or law enforcement, I live a small life. I can and will only speak to my own view. "My universe is my eyes and my ears, more than that I cannot say." To quote Douglas Adams.

Character and integrity comes not from what happens to me in my life, but how I respond to it. This is all I have, all I can offer.


That, and photos of Moby.

Divorce

The one description of myself I could never have imagined as a child, especially in such a Catholic family, was Divorced. And yet, I am. Have been. I was. It is a point of distress, though not shame. I know too many others who have loved, committed, and lost. No longer a huge looming shadow in my life, but a distant landmark of my past.

I have been reading Carolyn Hax of the Washington Post for years now, and find her to be wise and funny, a lovely combination. This past week, there has been discussion there about a person who did not, after a month of dating, inform the writer of his divorce. I side solidly on the side of early, full disclosure in a relationship. Anyone I consider a friend knows of my marital past. I met D before that divorce was final, of course he knew that because he was unit clerk in our National Guard Unit, and had looked up my file. First Guard weekend after I escaped, I found him out to tell him I'd left the marriage, even though we were barely friends, and only in that context, at that point. I was never anything but honest and up front with D.

At the time, though I knew I had to leave, knew the danger was escalating, it was not really escapable without help. I tried for a year. Try getting an apartment without being able to leave a home number. I was living in an alternate reality, where he would beg me to stay, plead with me that we "had something." And throw clothes angrily on the bed in the early morning, to accuse me of worse sins. I didn't just tread on eggshells, I danced on broken glass. I dared not drink, though he drank too much. I was raped, though not - because there was no such thing as rape of a wife by a husband where I lived, then. I allowed it, in lieu of a beating. Although, I had only had slaps and a few bruises at that point, and a replica black powder pistol discharged into the floor. He'd always been drinking when he'd shoved or slammed me up against a wall. And always promised that was the last time. I was crazy. I was tucked down hard, surviving, sleeping beside my worst enemy, keeping him sated and mollified, until I could find a way out.

I was ashamed. That I had not managed to free myself. That I was living with this, and hiding it, putting make-up on the bruises like any battered woman on COPS! Making excuses for him. Then. I decided to tell someone, so that I would not allow another year to go by without getting out. And I found out that I had friends. Then he threw me back onto the washing machine, leaving bruises against my back, and where his fists grabbed my shirt, dead sober. Oh.

We went for the second time to the counselor, the employee assistance one for the library where I worked, though he had been fired. The counselor took me aside, asked me what I wanted.

"I want a divorce."

"You need to tell him."

He brought him back in, and I told him, as I had told him before, but without witnesses, he had not heard, had not believed. He drove home, the scariest drive of my life. And left, telling me he was getting beer, to get drunk. I called the friend I had told.

"I'm coming to get you."

"Oh, I'll be alright." I said, in my fantasy world.

"No, I am not asking you. I am coming to get you. Pack a bag." Dear Maureen. Brave woman.

I was still packing when she arrived, and then he returned. She told him she was taking me. He said that was probably a good idea, and tucked into his beer. We left. I looked up a lawyer. He smashed everything in the apartment, and showed up drunk at my friends' house, giving his pistol to them, claiming to be afraid he would hurt himself. They approached me, and asked why I hadn't mentioned his gun. I had no clear answer. I had to call my mother, and tell her that my husband had been hitting me, the one excuse she would have found acceptable for divorce. I never went back. I grieved as for an amputated, gangrenous limb. I felt a failure, a fool, a liar. All, honestly, true. I was hopeless and bereft. I lived in my friends' basement for two weeks, in search of an affordable apartment, and disrupting their relationship. I was not malingering, I took the first place I could, in a very tight housing market.

D knew all. I hid nothing from him as we approached each other so tentatively. I dated someone else for a few months, assuming D was too young, and I only saw him once a month, anyway, knew precious little about him. I was casting about, with that divorcee appeal that draws in men. It wasn't pretty, but it temporarily shored up my shredded ego. In that last week before we were sent off to Gulf War I, another friend, W, a Vietnam era vet took me to get gear, and I invited D along. W and D talked Robert Anton Wilson, and I was warmed by their connection. The ex was to meet me at the Library, where W's wife worked, with D to provide buffer - though he hadn't realized it (I'd mentioned, but not clearly enough). D briefly met the ex, not realizing the relationship, and went off to bid adieu to friends. (He felt terrible about this, much later. ) I was trapped alone to "say good-bye" to the not quite ex. I pulled away from a kiss, if not his smarmy hug. I was ashamed that I had ever wanted to be with this mess of chaotic manipulation.

The legal divorce came later, and a friend came with me. Ex did not show, although he signed the papers, partly because I paid him some alimony, which he accepted without comment. The judge asked me why, and I said because he drank too much.

He made a note.

He'd been stealing from me.

Another note.

"And he's been hitting me,"

He signed the papers, and stopped me before I could say more. I didn't cry, then. I had chosen the most concrete reasons. The most legal reasons. The lawyer assured me everything was done. My friend, L, one of several who I didn't know would be there, took me for lunch. Then I cried. I felt strange, and relieved, and empty. I wanted to kill myself and rejoice together. A huge door slammed shut. And a million others swung open.


I am divorced. I failed. I tried again. The triumph of hope over experience. Sometimes, hope is right.


Life has to be loved fiercely. Or it will destroy all.

Swear

I endured growing up under the authority of an angry man with a foul mouth. I was called all kinds of intentionally demeaning names. I heard the whole curse vocabulary of this father every time he got angry. There was the usual assortment, including racial slurs, and then there were the combinations that were conflated inventions. If I could hear it today, I might find it grimly amusing, in a mocking vein. Even then, as the target, after spending some time researching the meanings, I could appreciate and ridicule his stupidity and muddle. Small comfort. I took it all too seriously when he goddamned me to hell, and it cut deep when he called me a selfish brat. When he called me a son of a bitch, I hated it, but it rather rolled off the mark.

But my mother's reaction, to interrupt and correct him, excoriate his use of vulgarity, never worked. The violent opposite, as far as I could see. And by the time I was ten and checking the Scatological Dictionary at the library, she had been hearing him swear for well over twenty years without changing his habitual mouth.

Knowing my mother's extreme, and largely irrational, aversion, to any word impolite, made me hold my tongue very tightly indeed. She vocally and bitterly complained about any off color language in movies, and I could feel her cringe if a swear word came out in a social situation where she would never utter a reproach. She would not allow me so much as Crap, or even darn, if said with any real anger. My frustrations and any sign of it were not tolerated. I heard her say Hell once, and Damn once. I was shocked.

.

Mr. Novak talked about swearing, in ninth grade.

"These are powerful words, not bad ones. And as such, you have to treat them carefully. Obscenity is for obscene situations. Swearing is a reaction to powerful feelings. Control these words, it's not wrong to use them in the right conditions. It is wrong to use them all the time for everything, it takes the power out of them."

I'd begun to practice the words, swearing silently when alone and inside my head. This touched me, and relieved me of a great deal of guilt about learning the words. I vowed to know what they meant, and to use them consciously, and with intent.

By the time I was in college, I had gathered a reasonable vocabulary, though I still used cursing with some embarrassment. Nothing like a bunch of theater students to practice shouting out rude names. Except, of course, for Army folks. Obscene words for an obscene situation. I found myself, at 26, rather proudly in possession of quite the potty mouth. Partly because of the great flexibility of the f-word. (Fanfuckintastic, for instance.) My language became turbo charged and potent, surrounded by constant swearing. I think I needed it. I hated the choices I'd made, I hated what my life was becoming, I needed those toxic words to kill off the old assumptions, the old habits and fears.

And when I started toward nursing, working with elderly folks in a nursing home? That took some steely control to keep my language presentable, and not to shock nor dismay, nor get myself fired. After one of my Guard weekends, it was damn near impossible. I allowed myself "Shit," being knee deep in it. I know shit. I defend my right to say it. Being surrounded by very religious minded cow-orkers, I had to keep myself in clean words. I gained control over my own exclamations. I still do not swear at work, with one exception. (See above.) Well, and bugger, but that is because most Americans don't know what it means. I don't say it around our Brit surgeon.

My father, for all his years of practice, swore badly. I swear well. I acknowledge this inheritance, the anger, the hurt. But I grew my own cuss collection. I never use the term sonofabitch. I will never swear at anyone, nor damn anyone to anywhere. Color and culture are not fair targets.


The goddamnedpigshit fuckwits are.

Suicide

I can't think of a time in my life when I did not imagine killing myself. As a small child, growing up in a Catholic environment, this was the darkest sin. My small misery was such that I still imagined it, even as I felt deep guilt about it. My teenaged angst was variations on the theme of death and self destruction, even as I lived exactly as was expected- explicitly.

I read mysteries obsessively, both fiction and True Crime and came to the realization that a botched suicide was far worse than any circumstances that were the impetus for escape by that route. I also believe I extrapolated that murder was a more reasonable alternative. Why kill myself when I could kill my tormentor? I began to plot my father's murder. But, as anyone who reads mysteries knows, murderers always get caught. I could never come up with a plan that would not leave me in far more chaotic trouble than before. I also thought it through, to foster care or prison, or to adulthood and escape. Just as I could not figure out a sure way to kill myself, the failed attempt being more damnation than the completion. Outliving current troubles seemed the surest path, so I endured.

In my darkest hours, this is what really saved me, imagining who would have to find me. A child? Stumbling upon my bloodied body, perhaps after a day or so? No. I did not hate anyone enough to leave them to deal with my mess. I delayed the act until I could see it through, leaving as little collateral damage as possible.

I began to fantasize escape, a fantasy that lasted until my late 20s. I would drive off and begin a new life with a new name, lost to those who claimed to care. It became acute when I was training for the National Guard, and full time Army was a real option, and my "marriage" was disintegrating completely. It was also the closest I actually came to a realizable plan.

I was in Kansas, OJT for the Army, alone, fights over the phone becoming exceptionally toxic, and I wanted it all to end. My CO, seeing me at the breaking point, sent me to an Army shrink. I knew that confidentiality in the military isn't even a fiction, and "suicidal ideation" was grounds for commitment. I talked about stress to the doc, and silently formed a plan- which effectively calmed me down considerably. I was going to catch a cab, go to a town pawn shop and buy a gun "for self defense", and late at night on the weekend, go to mid-stairwell in the hospital and shoot myself in the heart. Rationalizing that medical people could most easily deal with a dead body, and it would even be near the morgue. I see some potential flaws now, but it wasn't too bad a plan, all in all.

It was payday, I was on my way to call the cab, I had cash in hand. The hall of the barracks was lined with the full time Army folks, celebrating with lots of beer, and extra beer. I tried to politely get by, but they were having none of it, I was cajoled into a beer and a chat. It was the first time in a while I felt included, felt like laughing. I could always go tomorrow, right? I wound up very drunk, and kissing a very nice guy in the wee hours, and generally enjoying myself. Hell, I figured, might as well wait it out a while longer. So, I did.

It would be a hellish year when I got back, but I would survive it. And escape, and find myself again at the behest of the US Army, in barracks. With yet another nice guy. Who would turn out to be wonderful. My only regret being that my time when I could have stopped trying to live anymore, was over, because he would be so hurt, and have to clean up after me. No. Damn.

The fantasies continued, never ever admitted to in any therapy that I would occasionally turn to when I was in a bad knot. Every night, every morning of nursing school, I imagined myself killing myself, a knife through the throat, IV K+ (painful, but fast and certain), not really wanting to end my life, but to not have to get up the next morning and struggle on and keep going. To sleep. And not to dream.

Suicide was the option in extremis, like putting down an animal. Not so constant a mindset by now, but solace if I were to outlive D for too long. I could sell off or give away everything, and finally lay my burden down.

Then I had this brush with mortality for real. In the following week, I had the chance to talk with a therapist through my new employer's EAP. He asked me at the end, somewhat apologetically, "I have to ask if you have any thoughts of harming yourself."

I laughed, genuine relieved heartfelt laughter, "No, not at all," and I was telling the whole truth. I could not harm myself, even in my dreams, anymore. I had not realized what a trap my "escape hatch" was (had become?) I know, for real, down to the basement, that I love life. No conditions, no matter what, I had finally committed to living.

I'm still having flashbacks. My work in surgery means I am there to assist with intubations and extubations, and that bothers me viscerally as it never did before. When an anesthetized patient gags on the tube, I gag and blink back tears. I am even more emotional than my usual easy-to-cry self.

I am also calmer, more forgiving, happy.

I've stopped killing myself. My death will come in it's own time, not to be feared. But, now is the time for life. While my candle holds out to burn, this humble sinner will live with a whole heart, grateful, troubled, whole.

I breathe.

Love

How do I know that it is the real thing, that I am in love, that this is the one? Such an awful, unanswerable, and misleading question. Everyone who wants to love and be loved has asked it. I have heard many glib answers. Like 'well... you'll just know.' The pervasiveness of bad relationships and failed marriages exposes this as a glib lie. Or it's an old theory of Finding The Right One, applied to the modern problem of making what was long a social/economic construct and jamming it into a Hollywood Ideal of Romance. Only by reframing the question can any sense come of it. Then, it is one of those answers that can only come out of experience. How do I know a particular individual seed will grow? By planting it and finding out.

It is far easier to be taught what love is not, and learning the red flags. Manipulation, jealousy, contempt, disregard, unfairness, hostility, all apparently obviously bad things, but how many folks in abusive relationships will say "S/he is wonderful, except (for one of these mean behaviours)!" And who of us, new at the idea of love, have not tried to control the one we hope to bed? Or lost our temper when they were not living up to our fantasy of them? Or indulged in selfish stupidity, or self-destructive envy? Why should we expect perfect love, when we are ourselves not perfect? Because we have to start somewhere, and I cannot climb a seed, I have to let it grow into a tree first.

I had lots of crushes in school, and by the time I graduated high school, having not yet had anything like a boyfriend, or indeed a date, I had formulated a Plan. I was only going to allow myself to indulge in a crush if the guy was interested in me. I am still convinced this was a good principle, but being unbalanced, led me into six years of misery. I succumbed to the "But he loves me," argument for staying in an unsatisfying and dysfunctional relationship.

I knew, in the deep of night, in the dark of my heart, that I was never in love with the ex. I loved him in the way I treated him, but I never had that spark. I simply did not think anyone else would love me. And he told me he was the only one who woud love me. He had the spark, but never treated me lovingly. There were always two different rules for polite behaviour, one for him, one for me. He would correct me for standing with my weight on one leg, or fingering my toes (a comforting habit indulged when home only.) He treated these as bad habits he was helping me stop. (Huh?) He always took the waiter's side against my ineptness ordering in restaurants, and hated losing any game to me. There were far worse things done that would drive me to escape, but these small acts of dismissal, competitiveness and petty complaint stay with me more. The signs I missed, the clues I can only see clearly now. What I could spot at a glance now, I did not even know to look for then.

When I got to know D, I was raw and damaged, angry and deeply distrustful. He was young and very inexperienced, with only his friends' misadventures with girlfriends throughout high school to inform him. We approached each other with great caution. We talked. We spent time together, quite a lot due to sitting in Colorado Springs waiting to be sent to Saudi Arabia. We joked and asked questions and offered confidences. We pulled back, and misunderstood, and tried again, apologized and spent more time together. We each proved ourselves trustworthy, and began to trust. We talked about everything, anything, and made each other laugh. He coaxed me out, never judging me or complaining about me, never forcing.

Early on, we discussed marriage, as if at the ends of proverbial long poles. I was terrified of the idea. He didn't want to be trapped in a restrictive conventional life with a house in the suburbs, kids in a mini-van, and a job that sucked out his soul for 20 years. But the spark was so strong, and all of the bored Army folk around us kept asking us when we were getting married. There was always such a sense of rightness between us. We made vows.

1. Don't lie to me.

2. Don't treat me like shit.

Which turned out to be a very good place to start. We would, over the years add:

3. Never take each other for granted.

4. Always get each other toys.

Again and again, he gives small acts of kindness and praise, without considering any of it extraordinary. He quotes me, his professors know who I am and what I think. He always greets me with enthusiasm. He takes care of my computer and makes phone calls when I get an anxious attack of call reluctance. When I stutter and cannot find words, he is attentive to the utmost. He attempts skills he knows are beyond him, because I need him, like driving on a long straight road when my exhaustion overcame me while we needed to keep moving toward home, like trying to tie my hair back when my shoulder hurts, like dancing with me at a company party. And he astounds me with his skill, playing guitar, writing dense cogent history, giving a serious, funny speech, writing music.

We try to love each other as best we can. We admire each other, and grow in order to live up to each other's vision of the other. We cultivate privacy, without fostering secrecy. We laugh. We hurt each other. We keep coming back, in humble awe for how well it seems to be working. We are perfect for each other, as imperfect as we are. Did I mention we laugh a lot?

And so two people, without malice, can find each other endlessly amusing and interesting. We grew a wonderful love. It's a very nice view from here. Utterly impossible, easy as breathing.

Words

It bothered me deeply when my father swore at me. I was a son of a bitch. Is it worse to be inaccurately insulted? To this day, it is the one swear phrase I never use, and prefer not to hear. I certainly hated being called a brat by him. I was also selfish and rude and ungrateful, and a women's libber, Independent. The last two were some of the most vehement insults for him. It confused me, even knowing how stupid he was, to be insulted by being called what I wanted to be. Emotionally fraught, I still feel defensive calling myself Independent. I have read, and know from experience, that the verbal and emotional abuse sticks longest, is the time bomb. I have not spoken to him in five years, we have never had a real adult conversation, yet I can still hear his voice grating in my head 25 yeas after moving out of his house. His opinion of me, always rejected, is still part of how I relate to the world. When I was 18, I believed it. The words still hold power.

I don't know when I first heard about the idea of positive affirmation, I had already heard about it when it was introduced as an actor game one of the Theater program classes. I toyed with it, but never really used it. I preferred to list all that I hated, a game, my life. I couldn't do this, or that or anything I wanted to do or didn't want to do. I was all negativity and dislikes.
I was, however, building up a knowledge base, unbeknownst to me. I was learning how different people spoke, had different voices, from all the plays and movies I saw, all the books I was reading. All the talkative actors who loved theorizing and complaining and expounding. As I was absorbing without understanding or piecing it together. The words were seeping in. The idea of Good Words was percolating.

The picture came into view while I was in Basic. I found I could not run, could not keep marching, if I allowed myself to cry, to whine, to let bad thoughts stream through my head. My feet would falter if I let myself think "Oh, god I hurt, I'm miserable, I can't do this." So I shouted out the cadences, many were about being tough and marching on. The physical effect was immediate, I could keep going. I had to think positive words.

The Drill Sergeants would not accept excuses, "I don't care why you can't do it, I don't want to hear it. NO one wants to hear it." We just did the work. Told to do a job, we did it. A "can't" would mean someone would be in the front leaning rest position, and pushing until the Drill Sergeant got tired. I figured it was better off not being me. I stopped the inner commentary on why I couldn't, and it's not fair, and I hate this, unfair, unreasonable, horrible, why I didn't want to do it... and work became a kind of joy without emotional baggage. Mopping a floor gave satisfaction. When work isn't a personal injustice from the universe, it gives back pride. There is a quiet joy in just solving a problem, fixing trouble, doing the job.

When I began my lifelong conversation with D, he started by changing how I spoke. He would go quiet when I put myself down, or ask me not to talk about myself that way. In no other way would he ever complain about me, only this. It made him so sad, I stopped saying it out loud, and eventually, less and less inside. This was when I started to take the words seriously.

I polished up the positive language in the OR. An anesthesiologist corrected me every time I said anything to a patient using a negative. When coming out of anesthesia, we are like young children, hearing only the word, and miss the Not, Don't, Isn't. The negatives are processed in a different area of the brain. Which is why if I tell a child Don't touch that, that is exactly what they will do. Dr. Timmons insisted that I revise how I addressed the patient at emergence.
Examples:
"Your surgery is all over, you can wake up now." (Instead of "You are waking up"- which could be interpreted as waking up in the middle of surgery.)
"Everything went fine, you are doing well." (Instead of "Nothing went wrong")
"Let me keep your hand by your side." ( Instead of "Don't scratch your eyes.")

Because he was such an obnoxious twit about the whole process, (despite being right) I began to really practice this in my life. I would take a breath when he stopped me, and really try to be creative about what I could say. Mostly so he wouldn't catch me at a wrong phrase again. I really thought about how I said common statements in very negative ways. I worked at it, and the exercise had the same effect as when I was running in the Army. I saw life in a brighter light, and the impossibly difficult became effortless. As I thought better of my work, and then myself, I also thought better of the world. It is easier to laugh when I believe others thoughtlessly silly than when I thought them mean.

Words are important. The wrong ones do so much damage. I see it clearly every day in patients with chronic pain, the negative words grind the pain in deeper. I bear the scars of it in my father's idiotic verbal assaults (Son? of a bitch), and my own self inflicted anger. But the simple, clear, good words, applied daily, can heal many harms. I bathe in good words, slather myself in cheerful ones, steep myself in fine and soft phrases, swear with the strong curses, amuse myself with all the rest.

Life is good.

Violence

Despite hating, fearing it, my relationship with violence is complex, troubled, fearful and proud, guilty and sanctimonious. I have been swung at by patients, lived an abusive marriage. I do not hit people, not even in play anymore. I've shot M16s - Expert badge. I would never own a gun.

Small angry little girl, I beat up on my stuffed animals and dolls constantly. Threw them over the railing, smashed them into the floor, hit and stomped, with the intent of causing them pain, although on one level aware that they could not feel pain. In fact, that was why I beat on them, characters with an element of realness, but knowing I was not doing any real harm. My childhood anger was against the unfairness, the stupidity, the cruelty of my father. Although he never beat me, there were a few spankings, unjust ones, I learned nothing from them but that he was out of control, erratic, dangerous. They were not more than most parents at the time would have considered normal. I was not physically abused, it was the emotional bullying, the threat of strikes, the terror of an unpredictable authority, that has left me scarred. And grew in me an anger, raging violence, that lies there still.

I retaliated inside during his rages. Found out you can look at the bridge of a man's nose, and he cannot tell that you are not "looking at" him. I imagined hitting him, slashing at him with a knife, crushing his skull, and most satisfyingly, shooting a crossbow bolt through his mouth. Oh, I tried gentler thoughts first, prayers, images of martyrs, but nothing helped until I imagined the violence, shutting him up. When a man rages, throwing insane rants against you inches from your face for hours at a time, when you are a small child dependent on him for everything, the only defense is in your own mind. And a puny defense it is. I needed a more powerful weapon. My brother unwittingly provided it.

My oldest brother was beaten up in high school walking home from a dance, thug boys hit him in the head with a chain. A police officer found him and brought him home. Dave would be in the hospital with a concussion for the next week. When he got better, he learned all he could about self defense. And taught me. I would have been about 5. He frankly told me about fighting dirty, that if anyone bigger than me tried to hurt me, I was to fight however I could, gouge, scratch, kick, yell, go for the balls. Sometimes I think he got out some of his own aggression under the guise of teaching me, but I took the lessons anyway. My fear of being physically hurt was deep.

A girl in school decided she was going to fight me, I had no idea why - then or now. I was not going to put myself to the test for her idiocy, another irrational person trying to impose her will on me. I had no pride at all and made an uncharacteristic fuss to the teacher while lining up to go outside. That stopped the threat. I hated her for putting me in that ridiculous position. Most school teasing was more emotional, harassing me for being a "cry-baby," a true enough accusation, my labile temperament coming from my erratic home. Mostly, they were tears of anger, frustration. I would not escape the epithet until high school. I hated being picked on, of course, but it now pales in my memory. School taunts were like standing in ice water, while at home I was drowning in it. So if you bullied me in grade school, don't worry, I hardly noticed.

I had access to the library. I found the true crime section. I filled my head with the extremes of violence and perverse crimes. Read Helter Skelter, and a series of recollections by a homicide cop of his worst crimes. It filled my bloody mind, and salved some perverse part of me. Nasty images, that made my own hostility more normal. May have kept me from actually acting out my impulses, since the murderer was always brought to justice in stories. I stood behind my father one day with a knife in my hand, and hatred in my heart. I realized I wasn't sure where to cut, and I certainly didn't want to just make him mad. I would after consider what would happen, and the risks seemed much worse than just making it to 18 and leaving. The value of serious reading.

I grew up in Detroit, in a mildly poor area that would never see better days. Garages were broken into, gunshots were heard at night. When I went to college, it was at Wayne State, living a few blocks away from a notorious red light district. I saw drug deals taking place on the street. I walked all over campus, alone, at all hours. Never had any trouble. But it was always on my mind. An awareness, and a plan of what I would do.

I moved in with a guy. After we were engaged, he had been drinking, and slapped me backhanded, because I disagreed with him. I was furious. He apologized, promised it would never happen again, it was because he was drunk, and I shouldn't contradict him like that.... We would get married. He would get drunk again, it would happen again, at the rate of about once a year. Too scarce to see as serious, to me, at the time. During the last year, after I had gone through Army training, with every intention of leaving him, it got worse- weekly. Between the pleas of 'trying again' and the eruptions of violence, I was terrified, and caught. He shot his gun into the floor once, "just to see". I would be slammed up against the wall, thrown to the floor, slapped, raped- or allowed myself to be raped as a trade-off for being hit. I did what every abused spouse did, I put on make-up and felt ashamed. I had never hit anyone in anger. But once, he wanted me to hit him, to bring me down to his level, he egged me on, and I punched him in the chest. Instantly felt ashamed, sure that I had done wrong, but he was pleased, proof I suppose that I couldn't really hurt him. I felt like I'd sinned, I had even pulled the punch. Realized also that was the place on a man to least inflict damage. Knew I'd been manipulated. Disturbing interchange

It took a year for me to tell a friend, because I wanted a witness, so I would not let myself be shamed by still being there another year. I got us to a therapist. The day before that, he hit me while dead sober for the first time. Slammed me up against the washer, bruising my back, and held me there, fists jammed into my chest, more bruises. All the lessons for fighting dirty went through my mind, knowing his gun was in the other room. I knew him for a berserker, that resistance might prove more dangerous. I chose. I crumpled and begged for him not to hurt me. I begged for my life. I wept piteously. It was only a very slightly acting. I had no pride, and it still bothers me. I made the smart decision, the right decision, and it still feels awful. I want to hurt him. I still dream of shooting him, smashing his head against a concrete floor.

In the following years, I was urged by my dear one to give up the anger, stop yelling at other drivers, reacting with such hostility to slow waiters, and snapping at him. I came to the insight that anger is a toxic reaction to frustration, or the disappointment that life isn't perfect or fair. That frustration is the emotion, but anger the damaging, controllable, reaction. Gradually, I got out of the habit of rages- echoes of my father's rages. Like any addiction, I failed at times, but I was motivated to endure. For my love, for my sanity, for my soul. Gradually, gentleness took over my life, and joy followed.

And now? Surrounded by gentle people that I trust, I have let go of most of the rage. Until I hear about a violent rape, and think of how I would fight dirty. When I walk alone at night, I finger my keys ready to smash them into a nose, a groin. Almost as if by keeping such bloody thoughts in my mind, I will repel the violence. I still feel the urge to squeeze too hard, to push and slice, kick, bite. I try to let them flow through instead of damming them up inside, giving them no haven in me. I don't want to even ask if this is normal, it is normal for me, and I guard my gentleness as it grows.