It was easy to fall in love. Really easy.
We've all been to a wedding or two...all heard the "Love is patient, love is kind" reading by someone in pink taffeta and dyed-to-match shoes.
Well I've got news for you. Love is all those things - and a pant load more.
Love is patient, love is kind. And love is exhilarating and fun and sometimes a little fattening.
Love curls your toes and gives you the most blissful, dreamy sleep.
Love quickens your step and your smile.
Love puts all of your phone numbers into his cell phone so he can call to say he loves you even when he only has a minute. And lets you change the ring tone to a cheesy Abba song and puts your picture as his wallpaper.
Love remembers your friends' names, and your friends' children's names. And your co-workers' names. Even the ones you don't like. (Lars by contrast couldn't remember his own co-workers' names - so could never introduce me...)
Love goes to the beach with you when he'd rather watch a double header.
Love learns to drink microbrewed beer and chardonnay because you don't like Bud in a can.
Love comes to your son's little league game and doesn't make his presence known so as to not torque up your maniac ex-husband's neurosis or cause your children any undue angst. But anonymously cheers his head off anyway.
Love fills up your gas tank and gets your car washed while you are getting your toes done before you leave him alone all weekend to go to Girls Weekend.
Love walks into a cocktail party/crowded restaurant/football stadium and turns to you and whispers "How does it feel to be the prettiest girl here?"
Love runs out and buys Midol and a heating pad and a bottle of chardonnay and watches You've Got Mail for the 100th time on a Saturday night because you have cramps and a zit that makes you look like a hag and you don't feel up to meeting his friends for a drink.
Love drives into town to meet you, during the NBA playoffs, only to turn around and drive you home so you don't have to ride the train on a cold, rainy night. And brings you a treat.
Love smiles politely and makes relevant, inoffensive replies when your mother is on a loud, relentless tear about politics again.
Love comes to the doctors and sits reading back issues of Your Prostate and You and wringing his hands until he knows you have a clean bill of health.
Love drives lots of inconvenient miles out of his way at $4 a gallon to get you to an interview or the Chairman's picnic or a funeral or some other thing for which he has no obligation, all so you don't have to deal with your tendency to get horribly lost in strange places when you're a little nervous to begin with and don't need to show up with pit stains and smeary mascara from crying in frustration.
Love holds your hand, stands behind you, puts himself in harm's way -without being asked and for any reason, whether you caused it with your own foolishness or not. A threat to you is a threat to him. Real or imagined.
Yes, love is hard to find but easy to fall into. Which makes climbing back out such a long, slow difficult task that has you turning around and rethinking the decision over and over.
Friday, October 29, 2010
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Rude, Inattentive, Ill mannered, Oh My
And thus began a romance that bloomed and grew for the next three and a half years.
It was so exciting to have something to look forward to all the time…not waiting around for the next Girls Weekend or the next night out without Lars or the next milestone with the kids that I could enjoy in spite of him.
The difference was remarkable.
J. and I talked. About everything. About anything. For hours.
And never once did he act annoyed that I had dared open my mouth during the F-Troop Marathon, or give me the face that clearly was intended to say “What insipid comment must you make that can not wait until I am through yakking endlessly with my friend as though you are not here in the room?”
It was nice to plan what to wear out with J. It was refreshing to actually have somewhere to go, and someone to look nice for.
And someone who returned the favor by being dressed appropriately for the occasion, too. Without being asked. Who put a little effort into his appearance. Who wasn’t standing there in his underwear deciding what to wear just an hour before the wedding/bar mitzvah/dinner party as I stepped from the bathroom completely turned out from head to toe and prepared to dazzle him, if he’d so much as glance in my direction. Only to be asked to iron something at the last minute.
And though Lars would be hard pressed to notice if I were on fire, much less in a stunning new ensemble, he would occasionally, more so at the end of our long hellish journey to the edge of the abyss, make what I'm sure he thought were hilarious derogatory remarks about my appearance. To make me feel insecure. Level the psychic playing field, I guess.
Like telling me my beautiful silk shirt made me look like a jockey.
And comparing my new hair cut to that of a Campbell's Soup Kid (and I don’t mean Mmmm! Mmmm! Good!) Followed by informing me that my "whole head" had looked better the other way.
And inquiries that went something like “What are you supposed to be dressed up as?”
But what Lars had failed to realize was that, over time, his voice was not the only one I could hear.
I had received enough unsolicited compliments on my appearance from people outside my marriage to know that Lars was in the minority. And I don't mean compliments that were in response to my asking "Do these pants make me look fat?"
And frankly, I had gotten enough positive feedback about myself as a person in general to begin to realize that Lars was just a mean spirited kook. And being a mean spirited kook was just where his flaws began. There were plenty of others festering just behind the facade.
And it was that realization that set my feet on the path to divorce in the first place. If I was this wonderful, educated, worthwhile person to so many other wonderful, educated, worthwhile people who were not in a position of honor as my husband, why couldn’t my husband see me as such and take joy in the fact that every night I came home to him? Evidently only to be crapped on?
And if, despite my efforts to make him see me as anything more than just another wage earner in the house and just another person who he could dismiss like a serf, I was still, for all intents and purposes, invisible, why not vanish from his life altogether?
And when I finally had vanished, and alternately had appeared to J., he treated me as though I was a vision of loveliness, a joy to behold, a gift from above.
How very different. How very sad not to have felt that way for more than a dozen years of married life.
It was so exciting to have something to look forward to all the time…not waiting around for the next Girls Weekend or the next night out without Lars or the next milestone with the kids that I could enjoy in spite of him.
The difference was remarkable.
J. and I talked. About everything. About anything. For hours.
And never once did he act annoyed that I had dared open my mouth during the F-Troop Marathon, or give me the face that clearly was intended to say “What insipid comment must you make that can not wait until I am through yakking endlessly with my friend as though you are not here in the room?”
It was nice to plan what to wear out with J. It was refreshing to actually have somewhere to go, and someone to look nice for.
And someone who returned the favor by being dressed appropriately for the occasion, too. Without being asked. Who put a little effort into his appearance. Who wasn’t standing there in his underwear deciding what to wear just an hour before the wedding/bar mitzvah/dinner party as I stepped from the bathroom completely turned out from head to toe and prepared to dazzle him, if he’d so much as glance in my direction. Only to be asked to iron something at the last minute.
And though Lars would be hard pressed to notice if I were on fire, much less in a stunning new ensemble, he would occasionally, more so at the end of our long hellish journey to the edge of the abyss, make what I'm sure he thought were hilarious derogatory remarks about my appearance. To make me feel insecure. Level the psychic playing field, I guess.
Like telling me my beautiful silk shirt made me look like a jockey.
And comparing my new hair cut to that of a Campbell's Soup Kid (and I don’t mean Mmmm! Mmmm! Good!) Followed by informing me that my "whole head" had looked better the other way.
And inquiries that went something like “What are you supposed to be dressed up as?”
But what Lars had failed to realize was that, over time, his voice was not the only one I could hear.
I had received enough unsolicited compliments on my appearance from people outside my marriage to know that Lars was in the minority. And I don't mean compliments that were in response to my asking "Do these pants make me look fat?"
And frankly, I had gotten enough positive feedback about myself as a person in general to begin to realize that Lars was just a mean spirited kook. And being a mean spirited kook was just where his flaws began. There were plenty of others festering just behind the facade.
And it was that realization that set my feet on the path to divorce in the first place. If I was this wonderful, educated, worthwhile person to so many other wonderful, educated, worthwhile people who were not in a position of honor as my husband, why couldn’t my husband see me as such and take joy in the fact that every night I came home to him? Evidently only to be crapped on?
And if, despite my efforts to make him see me as anything more than just another wage earner in the house and just another person who he could dismiss like a serf, I was still, for all intents and purposes, invisible, why not vanish from his life altogether?
And when I finally had vanished, and alternately had appeared to J., he treated me as though I was a vision of loveliness, a joy to behold, a gift from above.
How very different. How very sad not to have felt that way for more than a dozen years of married life.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Day and Night
And from the start, things were different. Little things. Big things. Things that made me go hhhmm.
Like the time J. and I were hiking and I stepped in some rude defiantly non-curbing person's dog's shit, and J. found me a place to sit, removed my shoe, and then took it down a ravine to the creek to clean it off. Without being asked. And it wasn't so I would not smear it all over the carpet in his car, or foul the air in general. We had my car and were miles from the end of the hike in the great outdoors. He did it just to be nice. The modern day version of throwing his cloak over the puddle.
And J.'s willingness to help me out of a jam. Large or small. He'd show up with the right gizmo or white elephant item I needed to get something accomplished, or introduce me to just the person who could help me, or see that whatever heinous task I needed to complete was done before I got home.
Lars had generally taken the position that whatever the problem, I had surely painted myself into the corner on my own with my own foolishness, and unless there was a threat to him personally, my problems, large and small, were mine to fix. Clogged drain, transportation issue, tension at work, sick child, social engagement that conflicted with some rare and impersonal visit from his mother, my own pain and suffering.
And there were other things J. did that stood in stark contrast to how Lars handled similar situations. Things that made me realize that until J. did them his way, I'd been unaware of how bizarrely Lars had acted for so long.
Lars was always freakishly private. Shades drawn, doors closed, unavailable, inaccessible, unfriendly. Don't approach him. No, any contact would have to be on his terms. Our house, had I let it, would have taken on the appearance of a cave. Years would go by before Lars would make eye contact with a neighbor, much less meet one.
There was one crazy old lady, who after she got her meds worked out and stopped believing that the other neighbor had kidnapped her friend and was hiding her in her basement, took quite a shine to Lars. And in return, he regularly took her newspaper to her door so she would not have to amble unsteadily down her driveway in her Oomphies to get it herself. At some point, her daughter and half a dozen kids of varying paternal lineage came to squat at her house on a permanent basis. Lars took exception to their taking advantage. (At least that's how he saw it. She might have considered them great company.) One Christmas when we had tons of food left over, and desserts galore, Lars decided to be generous...but only with her. He prepared to take her a piece of pie. One piece! Knowing there was an entire family sitting in the house! Totally panicked that he was about to make an ass of himself, I told him to take the whole pie. Take two!(We had numerous whole pies left, I think we could spare some!) He replied that he didn't want the others to eat it; it was intended for her.
A moron says what?
Only after extreme peer pressure and as I recall, physical intervention on my part, did he relent and take an entire pie across the street. Weirdo.
The peculiarities didn't quit there. On the rare dinner date, when we'd be seated by the maitre d', Lars without exception would confuse everyone by requesting the seat in which I was about to be seated.
And dumbfounded, the stunned maitre d' and I would just go along.
So for 20 years, I had my back to the room. In order for Lars to be on the lookout for the Taliban, Hamas or the Stasi or whatever threat he felt was about to befall him from whomever was targeting him.
All those years, I had to face The Wall. And it was not Pink Floyd's The Wall. If it had been then at least there would have been some musical entertainment. In my case there was just Lars and his substandard table manners.
And so, on this particular night, when my second date with J., following the surprise date with J., began with me stepping out of the elevator at my building and into the beautiful bas relief marble decor in the lobby, J. greeted me warmly, looking handsome. And as he held the door open for me to walk through, he caught the attention of the guard at the desk and called to her, "Goodnight, Janet!"
I turned to ask him if he knew her.
He simply said, "I do now."
Very different, indeed.
Like the time J. and I were hiking and I stepped in some rude defiantly non-curbing person's dog's shit, and J. found me a place to sit, removed my shoe, and then took it down a ravine to the creek to clean it off. Without being asked. And it wasn't so I would not smear it all over the carpet in his car, or foul the air in general. We had my car and were miles from the end of the hike in the great outdoors. He did it just to be nice. The modern day version of throwing his cloak over the puddle.
And J.'s willingness to help me out of a jam. Large or small. He'd show up with the right gizmo or white elephant item I needed to get something accomplished, or introduce me to just the person who could help me, or see that whatever heinous task I needed to complete was done before I got home.
Lars had generally taken the position that whatever the problem, I had surely painted myself into the corner on my own with my own foolishness, and unless there was a threat to him personally, my problems, large and small, were mine to fix. Clogged drain, transportation issue, tension at work, sick child, social engagement that conflicted with some rare and impersonal visit from his mother, my own pain and suffering.
And there were other things J. did that stood in stark contrast to how Lars handled similar situations. Things that made me realize that until J. did them his way, I'd been unaware of how bizarrely Lars had acted for so long.
Lars was always freakishly private. Shades drawn, doors closed, unavailable, inaccessible, unfriendly. Don't approach him. No, any contact would have to be on his terms. Our house, had I let it, would have taken on the appearance of a cave. Years would go by before Lars would make eye contact with a neighbor, much less meet one.
There was one crazy old lady, who after she got her meds worked out and stopped believing that the other neighbor had kidnapped her friend and was hiding her in her basement, took quite a shine to Lars. And in return, he regularly took her newspaper to her door so she would not have to amble unsteadily down her driveway in her Oomphies to get it herself. At some point, her daughter and half a dozen kids of varying paternal lineage came to squat at her house on a permanent basis. Lars took exception to their taking advantage. (At least that's how he saw it. She might have considered them great company.) One Christmas when we had tons of food left over, and desserts galore, Lars decided to be generous...but only with her. He prepared to take her a piece of pie. One piece! Knowing there was an entire family sitting in the house! Totally panicked that he was about to make an ass of himself, I told him to take the whole pie. Take two!(We had numerous whole pies left, I think we could spare some!) He replied that he didn't want the others to eat it; it was intended for her.
A moron says what?
Only after extreme peer pressure and as I recall, physical intervention on my part, did he relent and take an entire pie across the street. Weirdo.
The peculiarities didn't quit there. On the rare dinner date, when we'd be seated by the maitre d', Lars without exception would confuse everyone by requesting the seat in which I was about to be seated.
And dumbfounded, the stunned maitre d' and I would just go along.
So for 20 years, I had my back to the room. In order for Lars to be on the lookout for the Taliban, Hamas or the Stasi or whatever threat he felt was about to befall him from whomever was targeting him.
All those years, I had to face The Wall. And it was not Pink Floyd's The Wall. If it had been then at least there would have been some musical entertainment. In my case there was just Lars and his substandard table manners.
And so, on this particular night, when my second date with J., following the surprise date with J., began with me stepping out of the elevator at my building and into the beautiful bas relief marble decor in the lobby, J. greeted me warmly, looking handsome. And as he held the door open for me to walk through, he caught the attention of the guard at the desk and called to her, "Goodnight, Janet!"
I turned to ask him if he knew her.
He simply said, "I do now."
Very different, indeed.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Mystery Date
We were meeting about 20 minutes from my house.
The whole way there I was wondering how I'd recognize J. It had been quite a few years. Maybe he'd recognize me? No way. I was waaaaaayyyyyy improved since the last time I'd seen him. Better haircut. Better shoes for sure. And not dressed like I was headed to an interview.
I found a decent parking space so I would not have to walk very far in the bitter cold (since the Marital Discord Diet, I had no ability to keep myself warm.) I made my way across the street to the pub we'd decided on. I could see it was crowded. Jammed actually.
Maybe I should call his cell and ask him for longitudes and lattitudes? Or maybe if he is at approximately 3 o'clock or 9 o'clock, if you consider the Guinness tap 12 o'clock
And as I considered these options, I heard a footstep on the pavement in the cold behind me. I turned and there was J. Of course I'd recognize him. He had that fabulous hair. Those green eyes. What was I thinking? And he knew me, too.
We sat at the bar, (9 o'clock) and ordered beer and appetizers.
And I am not sure where the night went, but we covered a lot of history, a lot personal territory, all the professional ground necessary. And before I knew it, it was hours later and we were at a second pub, not far from the first, and I was inquiring why he was still wearing his wedding ring.
He wore it for his girls. They didn't need to have anything more to wonder or worry about. I'd ditched mine the minute I'd told Lars he was getting the heave ho. I am not sure my kids would have noticed that I wasn't wearing my ring. I am not sure at that point if they would have noticed if I didn't have a head.
I was skeptical. That excuse seemed flimsy. But just the same, to let him know I was asking for a reason, and that reason being, that I wanted to make sure he'd truly been released on waivers, as though I could not help myself, I put out my hand and touched the ring.
And held his hand.
And 12 hours later, I'd had a kiss goodnight, had gotten a lovely e-mail, had received a bouquet of roses at my office (sending my boss sailing over the edge of reason) and had been asked on a second date. We would meet after work - he'd pick me up in my building lobby.
I was nervous. The first date turned out to be a surprise date. Now that I knew this was a date, I was a wreck.
And although I was wearing a fabulous outfit, I needed to work in a trip to Lord and Taylor at some point, because somehow I'd managed to get a snag in my fishnets.
And nothing says "Five Dollar Hooker" like a hole in your fishnets.
The whole way there I was wondering how I'd recognize J. It had been quite a few years. Maybe he'd recognize me? No way. I was waaaaaayyyyyy improved since the last time I'd seen him. Better haircut. Better shoes for sure. And not dressed like I was headed to an interview.
I found a decent parking space so I would not have to walk very far in the bitter cold (since the Marital Discord Diet, I had no ability to keep myself warm.) I made my way across the street to the pub we'd decided on. I could see it was crowded. Jammed actually.
Maybe I should call his cell and ask him for longitudes and lattitudes? Or maybe if he is at approximately 3 o'clock or 9 o'clock, if you consider the Guinness tap 12 o'clock
And as I considered these options, I heard a footstep on the pavement in the cold behind me. I turned and there was J. Of course I'd recognize him. He had that fabulous hair. Those green eyes. What was I thinking? And he knew me, too.
We sat at the bar, (9 o'clock) and ordered beer and appetizers.
And I am not sure where the night went, but we covered a lot of history, a lot personal territory, all the professional ground necessary. And before I knew it, it was hours later and we were at a second pub, not far from the first, and I was inquiring why he was still wearing his wedding ring.
He wore it for his girls. They didn't need to have anything more to wonder or worry about. I'd ditched mine the minute I'd told Lars he was getting the heave ho. I am not sure my kids would have noticed that I wasn't wearing my ring. I am not sure at that point if they would have noticed if I didn't have a head.
I was skeptical. That excuse seemed flimsy. But just the same, to let him know I was asking for a reason, and that reason being, that I wanted to make sure he'd truly been released on waivers, as though I could not help myself, I put out my hand and touched the ring.
And held his hand.
And 12 hours later, I'd had a kiss goodnight, had gotten a lovely e-mail, had received a bouquet of roses at my office (sending my boss sailing over the edge of reason) and had been asked on a second date. We would meet after work - he'd pick me up in my building lobby.
I was nervous. The first date turned out to be a surprise date. Now that I knew this was a date, I was a wreck.
And although I was wearing a fabulous outfit, I needed to work in a trip to Lord and Taylor at some point, because somehow I'd managed to get a snag in my fishnets.
And nothing says "Five Dollar Hooker" like a hole in your fishnets.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Date, Shmate. What date?
In spite of the fact that I initiated our divorce. And in spite of the fact that Lars drained my bank account and stole my credit card and cancelled it, and forced me to skip a planned vacation and plan another on the fly, and regularly denigrated me in front of the children and in public, and tried to convince everyone that I was a philandering, alcoholic, disinterested mother and wife, somehow, he was overly interested in who might be calling me (with that crooning, dreamy, manly voice) and what the purpose of his call might be.
Called me at work. Had a few questions for me about that call.
Of course, not wanting to return from my date to find the door locks changed and my personal belongings strewn across the lawn exposed to the elements, I lied. Said it was a cousin. No more explanation. Acted casual. Was actually shaking.
He totally didn't buy it.
I totally didn't give a shit.
And just for the record, when this episode eventually bubbled to the surface in an argument, Lars noted that he considered it cheating.
Cheating.
Even though we were legally separated and I had my lawyer's permission (in fact both lawyers...the fired one and the new one) to date my face off.
And in my defense I'd argued that point - and noted that I knew he told people that I cheated on him even when he knew I never did, and swore on my father's grave to it.
Kindly, sweet man that he is, he took that opportunity to make a disparaging comment about my father and me. Nice.
But anyway, I'd gone off to enjoy a perfectly horrible day at work...inclusive of enduring what was becoming a pissing contest with my also-getting-a-divorce boss who was having a less than rational reaction to my rebirth and rejuvenation as a divorcee, since she was the dumpee in her divorce and I represented the enemy.
Ran home. Took a bath. A bubble bath. I imagined that my mother used to do this.
I dressed in a brand spanking new outfit from the "Date Clothes" collection I'd stuffed my closet with, and stepped confidently out the door to my car.
On my way to the first truly hopeful evening I'd looked forward to in a long time.
Called me at work. Had a few questions for me about that call.
Of course, not wanting to return from my date to find the door locks changed and my personal belongings strewn across the lawn exposed to the elements, I lied. Said it was a cousin. No more explanation. Acted casual. Was actually shaking.
He totally didn't buy it.
I totally didn't give a shit.
And just for the record, when this episode eventually bubbled to the surface in an argument, Lars noted that he considered it cheating.
Cheating.
Even though we were legally separated and I had my lawyer's permission (in fact both lawyers...the fired one and the new one) to date my face off.
And in my defense I'd argued that point - and noted that I knew he told people that I cheated on him even when he knew I never did, and swore on my father's grave to it.
Kindly, sweet man that he is, he took that opportunity to make a disparaging comment about my father and me. Nice.
But anyway, I'd gone off to enjoy a perfectly horrible day at work...inclusive of enduring what was becoming a pissing contest with my also-getting-a-divorce boss who was having a less than rational reaction to my rebirth and rejuvenation as a divorcee, since she was the dumpee in her divorce and I represented the enemy.
Ran home. Took a bath. A bubble bath. I imagined that my mother used to do this.
I dressed in a brand spanking new outfit from the "Date Clothes" collection I'd stuffed my closet with, and stepped confidently out the door to my car.
On my way to the first truly hopeful evening I'd looked forward to in a long time.
Friday, October 22, 2010
Betty Lou's Steppin' Out Tonight
And then just a little while later my phone rang.
My caller ID indicated that it was a law firm calling...but not MY lawyer's law firm. Was Lars' lawyer Rochelle breaking all the rules and calling me directly? Is she really looking for that kind of fight? My fight-or-flight mechanism kicked into gear...and I placed my hand on the phone, my heart racing , by hand shaking, my mind trying to force my voice to sound calm and under control and in complete command of my faculties...and said, in a voice more Kathleen Turner than I'd intended, "Hello."
"Hello. J. Cullen."
And the voice was as deep and resonating and melodious as I'd remembered.
And it was as if the dozen or so years since we'd last spoken a full sentence to one another vanished and we were talking like old friends. Catching up on kids, getting current on careers, inquiring about siblings. And then we got into it.
We'd both married complete nuts. We'd both taken a heaping helping of shit from our families for doing so. We both quietly endured more insult, injury and injustice than most people would believe us capable of enduring. We'd both found a way to not murder our soon-to-be-first-spouses. (He went to meditate at a shrine, I walked laps at the high school track, both of us staying at it until we could go home and be reasonably confident we'd be able to suppress any homicidal thoughts.) We were both happy to be getting out, but sad for all the sadness and chaos it brought to our children's lives.
I took my place at the top of the basement stairs, sitting half way in and out of the doorway of the kitchen. A favorite place to have a lengthy private chat. It was nice to talk with someone about the otherwordliness of divorce without feeling like I was burdening them with my worries. It is an all-consuming thing. We had loads to talk about. And talked very easily about it all.
After an hour or so, which seems like considerably less time, J. suggested, as his mother had, that we get together for a beer and catch up some more.
I took this to be a "give me a call someday" kind of request. But his next sentence was asking me to look at my calendar and suggest a date that worked for me. He could arrange just about anything.
I knew Lars was absconding with the kids to his brother's house a few hours away when he took his share of the days later in the week. I suggested Thursday. He agreed. I gave him my cell number and we discussed a location.
I had a date. Sort of. I was going out in public with a man, a man who, if memory served, was good looking and kind. A man who was not my husband. Yay, me.
And then just like a date, he called on Thursday morning to confirm.
Only he called my house number instead of my cell.
And I'd gone to work already.
But Lars hadn't.
Uh-oh.
My caller ID indicated that it was a law firm calling...but not MY lawyer's law firm. Was Lars' lawyer Rochelle breaking all the rules and calling me directly? Is she really looking for that kind of fight? My fight-or-flight mechanism kicked into gear...and I placed my hand on the phone, my heart racing , by hand shaking, my mind trying to force my voice to sound calm and under control and in complete command of my faculties...and said, in a voice more Kathleen Turner than I'd intended, "Hello."
"Hello. J. Cullen."
And the voice was as deep and resonating and melodious as I'd remembered.
And it was as if the dozen or so years since we'd last spoken a full sentence to one another vanished and we were talking like old friends. Catching up on kids, getting current on careers, inquiring about siblings. And then we got into it.
We'd both married complete nuts. We'd both taken a heaping helping of shit from our families for doing so. We both quietly endured more insult, injury and injustice than most people would believe us capable of enduring. We'd both found a way to not murder our soon-to-be-first-spouses. (He went to meditate at a shrine, I walked laps at the high school track, both of us staying at it until we could go home and be reasonably confident we'd be able to suppress any homicidal thoughts.) We were both happy to be getting out, but sad for all the sadness and chaos it brought to our children's lives.
I took my place at the top of the basement stairs, sitting half way in and out of the doorway of the kitchen. A favorite place to have a lengthy private chat. It was nice to talk with someone about the otherwordliness of divorce without feeling like I was burdening them with my worries. It is an all-consuming thing. We had loads to talk about. And talked very easily about it all.
After an hour or so, which seems like considerably less time, J. suggested, as his mother had, that we get together for a beer and catch up some more.
I took this to be a "give me a call someday" kind of request. But his next sentence was asking me to look at my calendar and suggest a date that worked for me. He could arrange just about anything.
I knew Lars was absconding with the kids to his brother's house a few hours away when he took his share of the days later in the week. I suggested Thursday. He agreed. I gave him my cell number and we discussed a location.
I had a date. Sort of. I was going out in public with a man, a man who, if memory served, was good looking and kind. A man who was not my husband. Yay, me.
And then just like a date, he called on Thursday morning to confirm.
Only he called my house number instead of my cell.
And I'd gone to work already.
But Lars hadn't.
Uh-oh.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
'Tis the Season to Be Jolly
It was, although I had no way of knowing it at the time, my last excruciating holiday season with Lars.
He was his usually Scroogy self - went and bought ALL the kids gifts at some warehouse store with out consulting me - or even informing me - got gifts I would have never selected, and then "billed me" for them. Things like a battery-operated hot pink barking, walking poodle with various tacky accessories. (Which remains untouched by human hands, even today).
All this so he could tell his friends that he did all the Christmas shopping. As if.
And since when you have announced your intention to divorce, you are really just social typhoid, we had far too much time together over the holidays. They are more fog than fa-la-la-la-la to me now, but I do remember sort of faking it through separate visits to family and friends' homes, speaking in hushed tones about how I was doing. But mostly "celebrating" by ourselves in our house, the tension almost crippling with its weight. Visions of impalement with a porcelain Star of Bethlehem danced in my head.
And as we always had done unless we were traveling, Lars and I split the holiday break from school. Each taking a few days off from work to spend time with the kids and to let the kids spend time with their friends and their new loot, even if Lars did buy the world's largest privately held collection of crap to give to the them.
And it was one of the days that I was home...and not confined to my 3rd floor dwelling, that I connected with J.
Not that I was confined to the 3rd floor by a lock or a mandate. No, it's just that when you share a home with a lunatic, and his ass groove is deeply indented in the sofa, and he routinely sits in complete blackness to watch several TV shows at one time while guzzling beers and dipping Chips Ahoy cookies in them, and there can be no talking or reading in his royal company, there really isn't any reason to spread out in the other available rooms. I'm supposed to read John Irving at the dining room table?
So I'd let the kids have a few friends over and after whipping up lunch for a cast of thousands, had set about sorting through and paying the bills Lars and I shared, and projecting a 2007 budget for myself that included buying the house from him. My New Year's resolution.
And it was then that I got a call from J.'s Mom. She was nearly giddy she was so pleased with herself. She'd had J's family over for Christmas dinner the day before and had gotten him to give her his cell phone number. "Call him any time," she'd said.
I dutifully took down the number on the inside of my checkbook cover.
And in spite of having had school girl crushes on him at this time or that time throughout our lives, and though he'd remained in my thoughts long after having seen him at funerals or parties our families had attended, all I could think was "No way am I doing the calling."
I finished the bills and went to stoke the fire so the kids and I could watch "Elf."
He was his usually Scroogy self - went and bought ALL the kids gifts at some warehouse store with out consulting me - or even informing me - got gifts I would have never selected, and then "billed me" for them. Things like a battery-operated hot pink barking, walking poodle with various tacky accessories. (Which remains untouched by human hands, even today).
All this so he could tell his friends that he did all the Christmas shopping. As if.
And since when you have announced your intention to divorce, you are really just social typhoid, we had far too much time together over the holidays. They are more fog than fa-la-la-la-la to me now, but I do remember sort of faking it through separate visits to family and friends' homes, speaking in hushed tones about how I was doing. But mostly "celebrating" by ourselves in our house, the tension almost crippling with its weight. Visions of impalement with a porcelain Star of Bethlehem danced in my head.
And as we always had done unless we were traveling, Lars and I split the holiday break from school. Each taking a few days off from work to spend time with the kids and to let the kids spend time with their friends and their new loot, even if Lars did buy the world's largest privately held collection of crap to give to the them.
And it was one of the days that I was home...and not confined to my 3rd floor dwelling, that I connected with J.
Not that I was confined to the 3rd floor by a lock or a mandate. No, it's just that when you share a home with a lunatic, and his ass groove is deeply indented in the sofa, and he routinely sits in complete blackness to watch several TV shows at one time while guzzling beers and dipping Chips Ahoy cookies in them, and there can be no talking or reading in his royal company, there really isn't any reason to spread out in the other available rooms. I'm supposed to read John Irving at the dining room table?
So I'd let the kids have a few friends over and after whipping up lunch for a cast of thousands, had set about sorting through and paying the bills Lars and I shared, and projecting a 2007 budget for myself that included buying the house from him. My New Year's resolution.
And it was then that I got a call from J.'s Mom. She was nearly giddy she was so pleased with herself. She'd had J's family over for Christmas dinner the day before and had gotten him to give her his cell phone number. "Call him any time," she'd said.
I dutifully took down the number on the inside of my checkbook cover.
And in spite of having had school girl crushes on him at this time or that time throughout our lives, and though he'd remained in my thoughts long after having seen him at funerals or parties our families had attended, all I could think was "No way am I doing the calling."
I finished the bills and went to stoke the fire so the kids and I could watch "Elf."
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
D-I-V-O-R-C-E
So it is oddly comforting to know that my enduring little bordering-on-irreverent battle with Madame Church Lady will outlast whatever else is going on in my life. Hell, high water. Mostly Hell.
But the rest of it is up-ended in a way that is unfamiliar.
When I started seeing J., as I stated, it was at a particularly acrimonious time in my divorce. Lars had not even “left the marital residence” yet, and had not even committed to doing so. And I was not leaving the house that I had lovingly restored to its original beauty in spite of his artistic interference. No. It was my kids’ home and he’d have to burn it down to get me to leave it. I know they say that “Home is where Mom is,” and that could be a cardboard box, but, come on! When you are 8 and 7, Mom has a pull like gravity for sure, but home is where your Playstation is.
So the day he’d cancelled my credit card, and cleaned out our bank account and acted like he’d had a right to do so and therefore I should not be worried that he’d do anything really untoward, because those things didn’t qualify as sneaky and underhanded, I’d moved to the third floor.
The third floor that thankfully, and coincidentally, had been finished just months before…the finishing touches completed the day after my Dad had died.
And that is how we more or less peaceably co-existed for a few months. Staying out of each other’s way when we could. Spying on each other for dirt we could tell our lawyers. Even if I did have to constantly remind him to put on a robe.
And while it was excruciating to endure his now very aggressive bullying, and manipulating the children, to get through it with the best outcome, I knew I could endure almost anything.
But then I sent that Christmas card to J.’s mom and she’d called to ask if I’d lost my freakin’ mind, and I told her that I hadn’t and gave the perfectly reasonable excuse that I was getting divorced and learned that J. was too.
And I was thinking…
Even though I’d had the shocking realization that even if I had to live a life of full-on Miss Haversham solitude with only the company of my children and then later, some cats, I still would leave Lars.
And even though I was like a zombie on the best of days, sleeplessness becoming an actual lifestyle, and had no idea how the rules of dating had changed since I’d last had one (the ones with the cretin can’t really be counted when graded on a curve), I would like to venture out once in a while and maybe even test the waters.
But considering that most of my friends were married or in committed relationships and spent most of their time doing couply things, I was sort of off the social grid.
So I suggested to J.’s mom that she let J. know he can call me. We’d go out for a beer and play “Can you believe my spouse did this?” now that there had been sufficient time to have found humor in things like his humiliating me at a work function or her YouTube worthy temper tantrum over the way herChristmas gift had been wrapped.
Perhaps if we were each other’s steady-ender for a while, we could be each other’s scout too. Get our games on and go out together and tell each other who was noticing whom. Or who commented about whom. Or who had mint from the mojito in his or her teeth before anyone else noticed. Or even just introduce each other to friends to widen the social circles that had contracted somewhat during our marriages – and even further now that folks had begun to feel that they had to take sides.
This could be good. Merry Christmas to me.
But the rest of it is up-ended in a way that is unfamiliar.
When I started seeing J., as I stated, it was at a particularly acrimonious time in my divorce. Lars had not even “left the marital residence” yet, and had not even committed to doing so. And I was not leaving the house that I had lovingly restored to its original beauty in spite of his artistic interference. No. It was my kids’ home and he’d have to burn it down to get me to leave it. I know they say that “Home is where Mom is,” and that could be a cardboard box, but, come on! When you are 8 and 7, Mom has a pull like gravity for sure, but home is where your Playstation is.
So the day he’d cancelled my credit card, and cleaned out our bank account and acted like he’d had a right to do so and therefore I should not be worried that he’d do anything really untoward, because those things didn’t qualify as sneaky and underhanded, I’d moved to the third floor.
The third floor that thankfully, and coincidentally, had been finished just months before…the finishing touches completed the day after my Dad had died.
And that is how we more or less peaceably co-existed for a few months. Staying out of each other’s way when we could. Spying on each other for dirt we could tell our lawyers. Even if I did have to constantly remind him to put on a robe.
And while it was excruciating to endure his now very aggressive bullying, and manipulating the children, to get through it with the best outcome, I knew I could endure almost anything.
But then I sent that Christmas card to J.’s mom and she’d called to ask if I’d lost my freakin’ mind, and I told her that I hadn’t and gave the perfectly reasonable excuse that I was getting divorced and learned that J. was too.
And I was thinking…
Even though I’d had the shocking realization that even if I had to live a life of full-on Miss Haversham solitude with only the company of my children and then later, some cats, I still would leave Lars.
And even though I was like a zombie on the best of days, sleeplessness becoming an actual lifestyle, and had no idea how the rules of dating had changed since I’d last had one (the ones with the cretin can’t really be counted when graded on a curve), I would like to venture out once in a while and maybe even test the waters.
But considering that most of my friends were married or in committed relationships and spent most of their time doing couply things, I was sort of off the social grid.
So I suggested to J.’s mom that she let J. know he can call me. We’d go out for a beer and play “Can you believe my spouse did this?” now that there had been sufficient time to have found humor in things like his humiliating me at a work function or her YouTube worthy temper tantrum over the way her
Perhaps if we were each other’s steady-ender for a while, we could be each other’s scout too. Get our games on and go out together and tell each other who was noticing whom. Or who commented about whom. Or who had mint from the mojito in his or her teeth before anyone else noticed. Or even just introduce each other to friends to widen the social circles that had contracted somewhat during our marriages – and even further now that folks had begun to feel that they had to take sides.
This could be good. Merry Christmas to me.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
And These Thy Gifts...
In all the moving of chairs and flipping through folders I missed the name and the credentials of our invited guest speaker. Usually it is a priest. This guy spoke of teaching and of his wife, so I assumed Deacon. He could have been the Wood Shop teacher at the middle school for all I know. And all he knew.
For those of you who don’t speak publicly very often, understand these basic guiding principles:
People who have paid to hear you speak really want to gain something, so get right into it and don’t stop. Keep going until the final buzzer.
People who are there to hear you speak under duress want you to get into it and get it over with. Cut the small talk, the witty banter, the audience participation. You are on the clock on my dime and I don’t want to spend a nickel more than I have to. Get your jaws flapping, pronto.
This gentleman obviously had little valuable speaking experience and was off to a rocky start. His first mistake was to try to draw an analogy to real life. He described a retired military officer’s medals and accolades as confirmation of his life, and that confirmation is similar to my daughter’s Confirmation because…Exactly. It made no freakin’ sense.
So I took out my pen and began to fill out the reams of redundant forms in the folder, keeping one ear tuned to the guy bombing at the podium. Worse than amateur night at the comedy club. I squirmed for him.
And then for everyone.
For up on his soap box, for reasons that can not be reasonably be explained away, he began to poke fun at parents. Parents who think this or that, or endorse this or that questionable practice, or fail to embrace this or that tenet of our faith…all in colorful little anecdotal tales, intended to be humorous, but really not so, and all at some parent’s expense.
Laughing at the parents, and the kids, actually (nice!) who consider Confirmation graduation. This is a particularly direct slam at RES parents who would have to be nearing hospitalization-level insanity to partake in one more additional obligation beyond the point of Confirmation unless ordered by the high court to do so. It also assumes that the only meaningful teaching is going on at RES. Big assumption.
Laughing at a little story about two boys who “cursed out a nun.” (I would imagine that these same boys would curse out the Pope, the sitting President, the Queen Mum and Oprah Winfrey if given the opportunity.) And his story ended with the explanation that of course these boys cursed out a nun, because, as it turns out, their fathers curse at them. What an example he must be! (Hello, Einstein, did you ever think that the cursing was the least of the problems in these boys' homes? Maybe Daddy is also a crack-smoking scumbag who pimps out their sister!)
And then the parents who fail their children regularly by not going to Mass. Not going to Mass because they do not believe that the Bible instructs them to do so. And these parents he feels are not Confirming their children for the right reasons. He cited and criticized their excuses – work, obligations, dinner with a spouse – all frivolous in comparison to our moral obligation to not commit the mortal sin that is skipping Mass.
And I nearly raise my hand to argue that I do go to Mass, and that every Catholic who ever blows off a Sunday has a little internal argument with him or herself every time he or she does. And those that don’t are not going to have their minds changed by some stranger at a parents meeting on a Thursday night while they could be home praying with their children on bended knee for a big win for their baseball team.
But instead, I close my folder, recap my pen, uncross my legs and stand – hesitating for just a moment before I turn, and walk – no, strut – out of the gym, my fabulous boots clicking loudly as I go, hopefully attracting the attention of the other parents who are too afraid to do similarly.
On my way out I make a passing but very direct comment to Madame Church Lady who is standing like a sentry at the door. “ I can’t abide by one more minute of this discussion.”
And never once breaking stride, walk defiantly out the door to my car, still warm from the drive over.
For those of you who don’t speak publicly very often, understand these basic guiding principles:
People who have paid to hear you speak really want to gain something, so get right into it and don’t stop. Keep going until the final buzzer.
People who are there to hear you speak under duress want you to get into it and get it over with. Cut the small talk, the witty banter, the audience participation. You are on the clock on my dime and I don’t want to spend a nickel more than I have to. Get your jaws flapping, pronto.
This gentleman obviously had little valuable speaking experience and was off to a rocky start. His first mistake was to try to draw an analogy to real life. He described a retired military officer’s medals and accolades as confirmation of his life, and that confirmation is similar to my daughter’s Confirmation because…Exactly. It made no freakin’ sense.
So I took out my pen and began to fill out the reams of redundant forms in the folder, keeping one ear tuned to the guy bombing at the podium. Worse than amateur night at the comedy club. I squirmed for him.
And then for everyone.
For up on his soap box, for reasons that can not be reasonably be explained away, he began to poke fun at parents. Parents who think this or that, or endorse this or that questionable practice, or fail to embrace this or that tenet of our faith…all in colorful little anecdotal tales, intended to be humorous, but really not so, and all at some parent’s expense.
Laughing at the parents, and the kids, actually (nice!) who consider Confirmation graduation. This is a particularly direct slam at RES parents who would have to be nearing hospitalization-level insanity to partake in one more additional obligation beyond the point of Confirmation unless ordered by the high court to do so. It also assumes that the only meaningful teaching is going on at RES. Big assumption.
Laughing at a little story about two boys who “cursed out a nun.” (I would imagine that these same boys would curse out the Pope, the sitting President, the Queen Mum and Oprah Winfrey if given the opportunity.) And his story ended with the explanation that of course these boys cursed out a nun, because, as it turns out, their fathers curse at them. What an example he must be! (Hello, Einstein, did you ever think that the cursing was the least of the problems in these boys' homes? Maybe Daddy is also a crack-smoking scumbag who pimps out their sister!)
And then the parents who fail their children regularly by not going to Mass. Not going to Mass because they do not believe that the Bible instructs them to do so. And these parents he feels are not Confirming their children for the right reasons. He cited and criticized their excuses – work, obligations, dinner with a spouse – all frivolous in comparison to our moral obligation to not commit the mortal sin that is skipping Mass.
And I nearly raise my hand to argue that I do go to Mass, and that every Catholic who ever blows off a Sunday has a little internal argument with him or herself every time he or she does. And those that don’t are not going to have their minds changed by some stranger at a parents meeting on a Thursday night while they could be home praying with their children on bended knee for a big win for their baseball team.
But instead, I close my folder, recap my pen, uncross my legs and stand – hesitating for just a moment before I turn, and walk – no, strut – out of the gym, my fabulous boots clicking loudly as I go, hopefully attracting the attention of the other parents who are too afraid to do similarly.
On my way out I make a passing but very direct comment to Madame Church Lady who is standing like a sentry at the door. “ I can’t abide by one more minute of this discussion.”
And never once breaking stride, walk defiantly out the door to my car, still warm from the drive over.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Bless Us, Oh Lord
And the more things are changing, the more they stay the same.
To wit, I give you RES. Better known as CCD. Better known as hell for school aged children whose parents have chosen to separate church and state.
On an ordinary day, RES is an oppressive spoon-fed plate of criticism disguised as the teachings of piety and devoutness led by the Royal Order of Sanctimony.
When you have a child making a sacrament, it is Super Sized. And bitter and congealed and crawling with maggots.
My daughter is making the sacrament of Confirmation this year. It is a momentous occasion – one that is serious and joyous all at once. It is when we are truly considered adult witnesses to the Catholic Church. And it is fraught with all manner of hoops of flame for parent and child to jump through.
First up, the Parents Meeting.
This is where we sit all together at some inconvenient hour (not when our children are in RES class, which is borrowed time to begin with, but some additional time, perhaps as a test of our resolve) and learn of all the commitments we are in store for in the coming months.
Our children’s sponsors have already been harassed for a letter of eligibility from their home parishes. And of course, have had to provide a letter to their Confirmandi. A letter that they were asked to write through a note sent home in the RES folder which was supposed to be retrieved by the diligent RES parent, and forwarded by some means to the sponsor, who is then supposed to just know what to do. Oh, and as organized as always, there is no mention of a deadline, just routine harassment that it is going to be late if you don’t write it RIGHT NOW.
On this particular Thursday night, which, incidentally, clashed with Game 2 of the baseball post-season for my favorite hometown team, I rushed home from work, prepared a quick dinner, threw in a load of laundry, baked some muffins for the weekend, ironed an outfit for the next day, ran the vacuum through the bedrooms while the floors were still uncluttered, and then strode out the door, pen and tablet in hand. Hating having to go, but optimistic about the possibilities.
At a minimum, I’d need to learn what color robes the kids will be wearing this year. Of course, if it’s changed since your last family Confirmation and you’d like your child to wear the robe you already have, instead of spending $18 for a new one, you are welcome to do that. So what if the robes are red this year, and your kid is wearing white. Why not also tape a sign on the back that reads “My parents could not care less about this gig.”
I enter the gym with another lady who is rushing to beat the bell. We stop to get our children’s folders. This is how they will know we attended. Only the wicked parents’ folders remain on the table when the evening is through.
I am then greeted by Mrs. Marley – the nut that has been terrorizing 6th graders and humiliating them into learning the gifts of the Holy Spirit for decades.
She is wide eyed and reaches out to touch the sleeve of the outfit I wore to work. At first I think she’s admiring it. It is a suede leopard print with turquoise lining and piping. Fabulous. But no. She is wildly inquiring why I am so dressed up.
What?
I look at her like she is insane (and she might be, who knows) and tell her flatly, “Because this is what I wore to work.”
She seems genuinely surprised by the novelty of the concept. Why? Not everyone walks around all day in their sweatpants and appliquéd Halloween cardigan and Crocs, lady!
I remove a chair from the stack by the wall and take a seat in the back where I can text away if I am bored beyond redemption.
I had no idea how bad it could get.
To wit, I give you RES. Better known as CCD. Better known as hell for school aged children whose parents have chosen to separate church and state.
On an ordinary day, RES is an oppressive spoon-fed plate of criticism disguised as the teachings of piety and devoutness led by the Royal Order of Sanctimony.
When you have a child making a sacrament, it is Super Sized. And bitter and congealed and crawling with maggots.
My daughter is making the sacrament of Confirmation this year. It is a momentous occasion – one that is serious and joyous all at once. It is when we are truly considered adult witnesses to the Catholic Church. And it is fraught with all manner of hoops of flame for parent and child to jump through.
First up, the Parents Meeting.
This is where we sit all together at some inconvenient hour (not when our children are in RES class, which is borrowed time to begin with, but some additional time, perhaps as a test of our resolve) and learn of all the commitments we are in store for in the coming months.
Our children’s sponsors have already been harassed for a letter of eligibility from their home parishes. And of course, have had to provide a letter to their Confirmandi. A letter that they were asked to write through a note sent home in the RES folder which was supposed to be retrieved by the diligent RES parent, and forwarded by some means to the sponsor, who is then supposed to just know what to do. Oh, and as organized as always, there is no mention of a deadline, just routine harassment that it is going to be late if you don’t write it RIGHT NOW.
On this particular Thursday night, which, incidentally, clashed with Game 2 of the baseball post-season for my favorite hometown team, I rushed home from work, prepared a quick dinner, threw in a load of laundry, baked some muffins for the weekend, ironed an outfit for the next day, ran the vacuum through the bedrooms while the floors were still uncluttered, and then strode out the door, pen and tablet in hand. Hating having to go, but optimistic about the possibilities.
At a minimum, I’d need to learn what color robes the kids will be wearing this year. Of course, if it’s changed since your last family Confirmation and you’d like your child to wear the robe you already have, instead of spending $18 for a new one, you are welcome to do that. So what if the robes are red this year, and your kid is wearing white. Why not also tape a sign on the back that reads “My parents could not care less about this gig.”
I enter the gym with another lady who is rushing to beat the bell. We stop to get our children’s folders. This is how they will know we attended. Only the wicked parents’ folders remain on the table when the evening is through.
I am then greeted by Mrs. Marley – the nut that has been terrorizing 6th graders and humiliating them into learning the gifts of the Holy Spirit for decades.
She is wide eyed and reaches out to touch the sleeve of the outfit I wore to work. At first I think she’s admiring it. It is a suede leopard print with turquoise lining and piping. Fabulous. But no. She is wildly inquiring why I am so dressed up.
What?
I look at her like she is insane (and she might be, who knows) and tell her flatly, “Because this is what I wore to work.”
She seems genuinely surprised by the novelty of the concept. Why? Not everyone walks around all day in their sweatpants and appliquéd Halloween cardigan and Crocs, lady!
I remove a chair from the stack by the wall and take a seat in the back where I can text away if I am bored beyond redemption.
I had no idea how bad it could get.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Holidays on Ice, with a Twist
And then, it was the holidays. I was fresh off the Rock Star vacation and feeling pretty good about things. I decided to get my act together and get my Christmas cards in order.
I am sure you are thinking that the Christmas cards are more a “Nero fiddling while Rome burns” kind of thing. But you’d be wrong.
When my son was just a few, and I do mean just a few, months old, I discovered quite surprisingly that I was pregnant with my daughter. I had only just sent out the announcements and baptized the first and already was unpacking the wretched maternity clothes to accommodate the expansion for the second. It was just weeks before Christmas, and we’d just gotten pictures taken for use on the first ever Christmas card featuring His Royal Cuteness, and I decided to kill two joyous turtle doves with one stone.
I signed the cards from the three of us “and Baby makes 4.”
Which was loads of fun because it prompted everyone to call, and I got to brag about my little guy and hear all kinds of useful advice from far more experienced mothers. (Like don’t go overboard at Christmas. The kid will not know if you wrapped up a box of Q-Tips, he’ll be happy to play with the wrapping.)
So, in similar fashion, I took this opportunity all these years later to come out as a soon-to-be-divorcee.
Because really, except for the people you call and boo-hoo to, not everyone is completely informed of your harrowing status change (Facebook notwithstanding) and it’s not something you send out cute postcards about, like when you change your address (unless of course you do actually return home one day to find your locks changed and your belongings on the lawn exposed to the elements – and eventually take up residence in a different dwelling…)
So, I took some cute pics of the kids, with a disposable camera because Lars claimed the good one on his list (and thankfully my son soon broke it...nasty break, loser) got them printed in multiples, and found cute cards to insert them into – scrawling a warm holiday wish and signing just my name and the two kids’. No Lars. No explanation.
And again. The phone calls. And the advice from far more experienced divorcees, natch.
And then out of nowhere, J.’s mother called. She’d not sent out cards this year but had just gotten mine…the kids are adorable...and was I OK? Did I realize I’d forgotten to sign my husband’s name?
Oh yes, I’d realized. There was a reason for it.
And that is when she told me about J. He too was freeing himself from the bonds of matrimony.
God help us, everyone.
I am sure you are thinking that the Christmas cards are more a “Nero fiddling while Rome burns” kind of thing. But you’d be wrong.
When my son was just a few, and I do mean just a few, months old, I discovered quite surprisingly that I was pregnant with my daughter. I had only just sent out the announcements and baptized the first and already was unpacking the wretched maternity clothes to accommodate the expansion for the second. It was just weeks before Christmas, and we’d just gotten pictures taken for use on the first ever Christmas card featuring His Royal Cuteness, and I decided to kill two joyous turtle doves with one stone.
I signed the cards from the three of us “and Baby makes 4.”
Which was loads of fun because it prompted everyone to call, and I got to brag about my little guy and hear all kinds of useful advice from far more experienced mothers. (Like don’t go overboard at Christmas. The kid will not know if you wrapped up a box of Q-Tips, he’ll be happy to play with the wrapping.)
So, in similar fashion, I took this opportunity all these years later to come out as a soon-to-be-divorcee.
Because really, except for the people you call and boo-hoo to, not everyone is completely informed of your harrowing status change (Facebook notwithstanding) and it’s not something you send out cute postcards about, like when you change your address (unless of course you do actually return home one day to find your locks changed and your belongings on the lawn exposed to the elements – and eventually take up residence in a different dwelling…)
So, I took some cute pics of the kids, with a disposable camera because Lars claimed the good one on his list (and thankfully my son soon broke it...nasty break, loser) got them printed in multiples, and found cute cards to insert them into – scrawling a warm holiday wish and signing just my name and the two kids’. No Lars. No explanation.
And again. The phone calls. And the advice from far more experienced divorcees, natch.
And then out of nowhere, J.’s mother called. She’d not sent out cards this year but had just gotten mine…the kids are adorable...and was I OK? Did I realize I’d forgotten to sign my husband’s name?
Oh yes, I’d realized. There was a reason for it.
And that is when she told me about J. He too was freeing himself from the bonds of matrimony.
God help us, everyone.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
And the Beat Goes On
So – life without J. More or less.
Seems like a lot more less than more.
Considering I began to date J. - if you could really call it dating – back when I was in the worst, most embattled part of my divorce proceeding. Where Lars was saying “I’m going to take the kids, the house and all of your money” and I was saying, “Over my rotting carcass you will!” but privately whimpering that he might just get away with it if I didn’t fire my lawyer and get a better one. One with a big pair of brass balls and maybe an ax to grind against men. A woman scorned, ideally.
And I’d just cleared a few post-marital hurdles that were huge. For me, anyway.
I’d been sent and had accepted for myself only, an invitation to a birthday party. A grown up birthday party. Not that I hadn’t been to a few gigs by myself in the past. The difference here was, that the invitation was intended for me alone, and I’d RSVPed without considering anyone else’s needs and put it on the calendar so that Lars would know the date was taken. And I’d not had to make an excuse about a babysitter cancelling or some unfortunate conflict to explain away Lars’ absence. Liberating.
And I’d been invited on a trip – a fabulous trip – with a bunch of gal pals. Invited to board a plane and to fly across the nation to a beautiful resort to enjoy the sun and the spa and the cocktails on the coattails of one of my most colorful friends who’d won the trip as a bonus. And in spite of my less ballsy, not-quite-yet-fired lawyer’s warning that more than likely I’d come home to find the locks to my house changed and all my belongings on the front lawn exposed to the elements, I’d booked the flight, packed the bag, and embarked on a trip I frequently refer to wistfully as our Rock Star Vacation.
And I’d gone on a date or two – if they really qualify as dates by definition – with a total cretin. Looked good on paper, a disaster in person. Cheap, rude, inconsiderate, inattentive. But while I was figuring out all that, he’d gotten me to “get my girl on.” Dust off the features I’d forgotten I’d once had – Not Miss America, but not bad looking. The ability to put together a subject and a verb and hold up my end of an intelligent or humorous conversation. A decent figure that didn’t scream “Gave birth twice.” A unique sense of style: well north of Mom Jeans but not Lady Gaga. And gosh, even a reasonably informed opinion or two. Even if he wasn’t worth the effort, I’d gotten up off the bench and taken my place in the huddle.
I’d systematically gone through the closet and tossed anything that did not fit my dwindling frame (whittled down to a lithe size zero on the Marital Discord Diet). I spent countless lunch hours prowling the racks of Loehmann’s and Daffy’s and any place that has tons of high end, end of season stuff that no one else will be wearing. (Sorry Talbots, but I’d sooner die than step into a meeting wearing the same tweed jacket that another colleague is wearing. Even the discovery that it resides in any closet other than my own makes it kindling for my next fire pit blaze.) I tried on styles I’d never thought to take into the dressing room before. I was quite pleased with some of the discoveries I’d made.
I’d pitched all the dowdy pajamas – chucked the shapeless ones in favor of flattering ones – the flannel for the fun. Just for me. Lingerie and pretty undies from the marital years, gone. Enough said. Replaced with new and improved fabulousness.
Shoes. Imelda Marcos has nothing on me. I’ve always enjoyed them and now the sexier the better. I nearly had to hire a closet organizer for the shoes alone. Boots. Heels. Peep toes. Sling backs. In volume. The more frivolous the better.
All for me.
Until there was J.
Seems like a lot more less than more.
Considering I began to date J. - if you could really call it dating – back when I was in the worst, most embattled part of my divorce proceeding. Where Lars was saying “I’m going to take the kids, the house and all of your money” and I was saying, “Over my rotting carcass you will!” but privately whimpering that he might just get away with it if I didn’t fire my lawyer and get a better one. One with a big pair of brass balls and maybe an ax to grind against men. A woman scorned, ideally.
And I’d just cleared a few post-marital hurdles that were huge. For me, anyway.
I’d been sent and had accepted for myself only, an invitation to a birthday party. A grown up birthday party. Not that I hadn’t been to a few gigs by myself in the past. The difference here was, that the invitation was intended for me alone, and I’d RSVPed without considering anyone else’s needs and put it on the calendar so that Lars would know the date was taken. And I’d not had to make an excuse about a babysitter cancelling or some unfortunate conflict to explain away Lars’ absence. Liberating.
And I’d been invited on a trip – a fabulous trip – with a bunch of gal pals. Invited to board a plane and to fly across the nation to a beautiful resort to enjoy the sun and the spa and the cocktails on the coattails of one of my most colorful friends who’d won the trip as a bonus. And in spite of my less ballsy, not-quite-yet-fired lawyer’s warning that more than likely I’d come home to find the locks to my house changed and all my belongings on the front lawn exposed to the elements, I’d booked the flight, packed the bag, and embarked on a trip I frequently refer to wistfully as our Rock Star Vacation.
And I’d gone on a date or two – if they really qualify as dates by definition – with a total cretin. Looked good on paper, a disaster in person. Cheap, rude, inconsiderate, inattentive. But while I was figuring out all that, he’d gotten me to “get my girl on.” Dust off the features I’d forgotten I’d once had – Not Miss America, but not bad looking. The ability to put together a subject and a verb and hold up my end of an intelligent or humorous conversation. A decent figure that didn’t scream “Gave birth twice.” A unique sense of style: well north of Mom Jeans but not Lady Gaga. And gosh, even a reasonably informed opinion or two. Even if he wasn’t worth the effort, I’d gotten up off the bench and taken my place in the huddle.
I’d systematically gone through the closet and tossed anything that did not fit my dwindling frame (whittled down to a lithe size zero on the Marital Discord Diet). I spent countless lunch hours prowling the racks of Loehmann’s and Daffy’s and any place that has tons of high end, end of season stuff that no one else will be wearing. (Sorry Talbots, but I’d sooner die than step into a meeting wearing the same tweed jacket that another colleague is wearing. Even the discovery that it resides in any closet other than my own makes it kindling for my next fire pit blaze.) I tried on styles I’d never thought to take into the dressing room before. I was quite pleased with some of the discoveries I’d made.
I’d pitched all the dowdy pajamas – chucked the shapeless ones in favor of flattering ones – the flannel for the fun. Just for me. Lingerie and pretty undies from the marital years, gone. Enough said. Replaced with new and improved fabulousness.
Shoes. Imelda Marcos has nothing on me. I’ve always enjoyed them and now the sexier the better. I nearly had to hire a closet organizer for the shoes alone. Boots. Heels. Peep toes. Sling backs. In volume. The more frivolous the better.
All for me.
Until there was J.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Feelings! Woah, Woah...Woe?
I don't recall feeling remorse about gifts Lars had given me. That is to say, I didn't feel awkward wearing the jewelry or clothes or whatever that Lars gave me as my husband after I told him he didn't get tenure.
I am not sure, but maybe it was simply that I had long before stopped loving him in any genuine way and therefore did not have any misgivings about strutting my fabulous self about town in the cashmere that was under the tree one Christmas. And didn't feel guilty about accepting a compliment on the fabulous ring he'd run around like a madman to find in time for my birthday one year.
Or maybe I felt it was entitlement. Like I'd earned those gifts. Paid for them with my soul. Many of them I'd come to consider gifts of atonement. As in "Sorry I left with my friends for the 1 o'clock game right after breakfast and left you alone with two vomiting kids on Halloween and you had to ask your cranky old aunt to come over to help with the trick-or-treaters while you attended to throw up detail and I went out for even more beer after the game and returned 8 hours after the final buzzer completely shit-faced. But here's a nice tennis bracelet as a consolation prize."
Truly I feel like these are my things. I'd traded my blood, sweat and tears for them.
I don't feel that way about every gift. I love the knotted gold band sitting in my jewelry box upstairs. But I can not wear it. It is the ring we got me as a souvenir on our honeymoon. Taboo to wear it but can't part with it...though I gladly parted with the spouse. Odd.
So I am having a bout of conscience about gifts from J. Maybe it is my deep, abiding respect for him standing up and waving its arms in my face but I feel guilty wearing some of the gifts he gave me now that we are apart.
Maybe because some of them scream his name to me and I think everyone can hear it?
I know. Insanity.
Don't get me wrong. The gorgeous, astonishingly expensive watch he gave me goes on my wrist every day. I am not an idiot.
But there is a label to some of the other things.
It's like when I was a new mother. I'd had an unwritten rule: If an article of clothing had been worn during either of my size-of-a-mobile-home pregnancies, it no longer qualified as regular clothing. Manufactured to be so or not, they were at once and forever "maternity clothes."
So some of these things are "J. things." Things I got on trips with him. Things he gave me. Outfits from special dates.
Not that I have had to face this yet, but what do I do about the fabulous dress hanging in my closet that I mentioned I'd seen and J. surprised me with? It is a perfect dinner date dress and it will eventually call to me to be worn as such one day. And this - at least right now - is a bit of a crisis of conscience for me.
They say time heals all wounds. I am hoping that while it is healing all my wounds that it also heals this bizarre hangup as well.
Or maybe that is asking for too much and I just need to go shopping for new stuff.
I am not sure, but maybe it was simply that I had long before stopped loving him in any genuine way and therefore did not have any misgivings about strutting my fabulous self about town in the cashmere that was under the tree one Christmas. And didn't feel guilty about accepting a compliment on the fabulous ring he'd run around like a madman to find in time for my birthday one year.
Or maybe I felt it was entitlement. Like I'd earned those gifts. Paid for them with my soul. Many of them I'd come to consider gifts of atonement. As in "Sorry I left with my friends for the 1 o'clock game right after breakfast and left you alone with two vomiting kids on Halloween and you had to ask your cranky old aunt to come over to help with the trick-or-treaters while you attended to throw up detail and I went out for even more beer after the game and returned 8 hours after the final buzzer completely shit-faced. But here's a nice tennis bracelet as a consolation prize."
Truly I feel like these are my things. I'd traded my blood, sweat and tears for them.
I don't feel that way about every gift. I love the knotted gold band sitting in my jewelry box upstairs. But I can not wear it. It is the ring we got me as a souvenir on our honeymoon. Taboo to wear it but can't part with it...though I gladly parted with the spouse. Odd.
So I am having a bout of conscience about gifts from J. Maybe it is my deep, abiding respect for him standing up and waving its arms in my face but I feel guilty wearing some of the gifts he gave me now that we are apart.
Maybe because some of them scream his name to me and I think everyone can hear it?
I know. Insanity.
Don't get me wrong. The gorgeous, astonishingly expensive watch he gave me goes on my wrist every day. I am not an idiot.
But there is a label to some of the other things.
It's like when I was a new mother. I'd had an unwritten rule: If an article of clothing had been worn during either of my size-of-a-mobile-home pregnancies, it no longer qualified as regular clothing. Manufactured to be so or not, they were at once and forever "maternity clothes."
So some of these things are "J. things." Things I got on trips with him. Things he gave me. Outfits from special dates.
Not that I have had to face this yet, but what do I do about the fabulous dress hanging in my closet that I mentioned I'd seen and J. surprised me with? It is a perfect dinner date dress and it will eventually call to me to be worn as such one day. And this - at least right now - is a bit of a crisis of conscience for me.
They say time heals all wounds. I am hoping that while it is healing all my wounds that it also heals this bizarre hangup as well.
Or maybe that is asking for too much and I just need to go shopping for new stuff.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Kick the Habit
I am trying to form new habits.
And that is the topside spin I am going to put on this.
I am not breaking old habits, I am forming new habits.
Albeit, ones that are intended to fill up the space left by the old habits that are no more.
Habits like talking to J. every morning - all the way to work (I have a great cell phone plan.) Every day. All the way to work. Traffic jams and all. Even though I would have just seen him or talked to him the night before.
So I am re-acquainting myself with the local radio stations. The ones to avoid (Sorry, Celine!) and the ones to program into my buttons (Hello, Killers!) I feel sort of silly wearing my earpiece without the distinct possibility of a phone call- but I wear it anyway, because I drive a stick shift car and who needs to be fiddling with that thing on the fly if the phone should unexpectedly ring while I am merging or breaking for the Zoo Balloon crowd?
My evenings have become very productive...and oddly, a little broader socially. Since I am not yakking the night away on the phone, I am doing things I avoided doing, because I could not do them while holding a phone to my head. Like stripping my kitchen floor, and changing light bulbs, and spackling and painting the holes my son put in his wall hanging and rehanging a poster of Santana Moss.
And at the behest of my college roommate, Jane, and in exchange for her commitment to attend our (gasp!) 25th reunion with me, I am connecting with old friends on Facebook.
Facebook - I am finding it to be like a giant cocktail party. Only you can hear all of the conversations at once. And join the ones you want to join, and avoid the ones you'd sooner set yourself on fire than participate in. So you flit from conversation to conversation fairly effortlessly, and without having to get dressed up or worry about little bits of tapenade in your teeth.
Question - Does everyone find it annoying when work people try to friend them? If we were supposed to be FB friends, wouldn't it stand to reason that we'd already have more than a "Heyhowzitgoing?" thing going at the office where we sit 10 feet apart for 40 to 50 hours a week and don't ever think to go out for drinks in person?
And my mother's family! Why are they friending me?
People! You were not invited to my wedding! If I didn't include you in the most momentous day in my life, why on Earth would I want to give you access to my every day life?
Did my mother put you up to this?
Anyway, I am quietly adjusting to life without J. It is an alternate universe for the moment. And sometimes a little lonely.
But maybe lonely isn't such a bad thing for right now. I am willing to believe that if necessity is the mother of all invention, then solitude laced with loneliness must be the mother of something pretty decent too.
What that is exactly remains to be seen.
And that is the topside spin I am going to put on this.
I am not breaking old habits, I am forming new habits.
Albeit, ones that are intended to fill up the space left by the old habits that are no more.
Habits like talking to J. every morning - all the way to work (I have a great cell phone plan.) Every day. All the way to work. Traffic jams and all. Even though I would have just seen him or talked to him the night before.
So I am re-acquainting myself with the local radio stations. The ones to avoid (Sorry, Celine!) and the ones to program into my buttons (Hello, Killers!) I feel sort of silly wearing my earpiece without the distinct possibility of a phone call- but I wear it anyway, because I drive a stick shift car and who needs to be fiddling with that thing on the fly if the phone should unexpectedly ring while I am merging or breaking for the Zoo Balloon crowd?
My evenings have become very productive...and oddly, a little broader socially. Since I am not yakking the night away on the phone, I am doing things I avoided doing, because I could not do them while holding a phone to my head. Like stripping my kitchen floor, and changing light bulbs, and spackling and painting the holes my son put in his wall hanging and rehanging a poster of Santana Moss.
And at the behest of my college roommate, Jane, and in exchange for her commitment to attend our (gasp!) 25th reunion with me, I am connecting with old friends on Facebook.
Facebook - I am finding it to be like a giant cocktail party. Only you can hear all of the conversations at once. And join the ones you want to join, and avoid the ones you'd sooner set yourself on fire than participate in. So you flit from conversation to conversation fairly effortlessly, and without having to get dressed up or worry about little bits of tapenade in your teeth.
Question - Does everyone find it annoying when work people try to friend them? If we were supposed to be FB friends, wouldn't it stand to reason that we'd already have more than a "Heyhowzitgoing?" thing going at the office where we sit 10 feet apart for 40 to 50 hours a week and don't ever think to go out for drinks in person?
And my mother's family! Why are they friending me?
People! You were not invited to my wedding! If I didn't include you in the most momentous day in my life, why on Earth would I want to give you access to my every day life?
Did my mother put you up to this?
Anyway, I am quietly adjusting to life without J. It is an alternate universe for the moment. And sometimes a little lonely.
But maybe lonely isn't such a bad thing for right now. I am willing to believe that if necessity is the mother of all invention, then solitude laced with loneliness must be the mother of something pretty decent too.
What that is exactly remains to be seen.
Monday, October 11, 2010
The End of the World As We Know It
And with all of these new beginnings coming to pass, I am pressed to tell you of yet another. One that is not so routine and not so anticipated.
It is a reluctant new beginning. A beginning with far less excitement but just as much trepidation as starting Middle School.
J. and I have begun to slowly untangle our lives from one another.
Pause for reaction.
It has been a less-than-graceful dance for sure. Riddled with fits and starts. Neither of us willing partners in the tearing apart. Neither of us fleeing the other. But on some level coming to terms, inch by inch, night by night, milestone by milestone, with the fact that we are not what we intended to be for each other anymore. However unfathomable that is.
It is the saddest thing I have had to accept. I love J. Adore him. I mourn the loss of the life we’d hoped for and dreamed about having together. But clinging to it will not bring it back. It is truly gone.
I know we’ve thrown away the baby with the bathwater. There are things I’d be naïve to expect to ever have with another person. Facets of our life together that made me feel whole and happy, when the odds on whole and happy were pretty grim. Things that endure even now. Things that are rare and beautiful and coveted.
But we have stopped being a source of peace and happiness for one another – and if you can’t be those, well, what are you? A source of angst and misery? And while I’d love to believe we will remain friends after all this life together, I’d be insane to think that we could. And that leaves me heartbroken. J. is truly my dearest friend. And a friend is a very hard thing to lose.
But I don’t think it would be fair for me to call him and expect him to help me snake my bathtub drain again when it seems an entire toupee or even a live cat has been caught in it. Or for me expect him to care that my garden has been taken over by Deadly Nightshade again. Or to expect him to be elated for me when I win the lottery, or book a great vacation or my child gets into a wonderful school. Or to expect him to empathize when I go on a date with someone I think might be fabulous only to learn that he is a total putz with hellacious manners, and poor grammar and a wife already. Or to act like he gives a shit when my ex-husband takes me to court to demand more child support because I got promoted. No. He loves me but this type of friendship would be expecting too much. All bets are off.
And for that I am profoundly regretful. Because no matter what, I love J. for who he is, and who he has been, and who he will always be. I will always want to tear his ex-wife’s brittle, over-processed hair out of her mishapen head in fistfuls for her unrelenting attempts to take just a little more from him. I will always want to turn a cartwheel, however awkwardly, when he lands a big account. I will always hear his reassuring voice resonating in my dreams. I will always want him to know how much I appreciated all that he did for me, when I was so hateful I would not have done anything nice for me. I will always want to know if he is unwell or troubled so I can be a voice of comfort and reason when the hens are clucking around him making matters worse.
But for now, those will be unpoken thoughts. Private matters. Matters of the heart only.
So I am starting life a-new.
It just doesn’t feel so smooth and shiny.
And it certainly is not wrapped up in a big red bow.
It is a reluctant new beginning. A beginning with far less excitement but just as much trepidation as starting Middle School.
J. and I have begun to slowly untangle our lives from one another.
Pause for reaction.
It has been a less-than-graceful dance for sure. Riddled with fits and starts. Neither of us willing partners in the tearing apart. Neither of us fleeing the other. But on some level coming to terms, inch by inch, night by night, milestone by milestone, with the fact that we are not what we intended to be for each other anymore. However unfathomable that is.
It is the saddest thing I have had to accept. I love J. Adore him. I mourn the loss of the life we’d hoped for and dreamed about having together. But clinging to it will not bring it back. It is truly gone.
I know we’ve thrown away the baby with the bathwater. There are things I’d be naïve to expect to ever have with another person. Facets of our life together that made me feel whole and happy, when the odds on whole and happy were pretty grim. Things that endure even now. Things that are rare and beautiful and coveted.
But we have stopped being a source of peace and happiness for one another – and if you can’t be those, well, what are you? A source of angst and misery? And while I’d love to believe we will remain friends after all this life together, I’d be insane to think that we could. And that leaves me heartbroken. J. is truly my dearest friend. And a friend is a very hard thing to lose.
But I don’t think it would be fair for me to call him and expect him to help me snake my bathtub drain again when it seems an entire toupee or even a live cat has been caught in it. Or for me expect him to care that my garden has been taken over by Deadly Nightshade again. Or to expect him to be elated for me when I win the lottery, or book a great vacation or my child gets into a wonderful school. Or to expect him to empathize when I go on a date with someone I think might be fabulous only to learn that he is a total putz with hellacious manners, and poor grammar and a wife already. Or to act like he gives a shit when my ex-husband takes me to court to demand more child support because I got promoted. No. He loves me but this type of friendship would be expecting too much. All bets are off.
And for that I am profoundly regretful. Because no matter what, I love J. for who he is, and who he has been, and who he will always be. I will always want to tear his ex-wife’s brittle, over-processed hair out of her mishapen head in fistfuls for her unrelenting attempts to take just a little more from him. I will always want to turn a cartwheel, however awkwardly, when he lands a big account. I will always hear his reassuring voice resonating in my dreams. I will always want him to know how much I appreciated all that he did for me, when I was so hateful I would not have done anything nice for me. I will always want to know if he is unwell or troubled so I can be a voice of comfort and reason when the hens are clucking around him making matters worse.
But for now, those will be unpoken thoughts. Private matters. Matters of the heart only.
So I am starting life a-new.
It just doesn’t feel so smooth and shiny.
And it certainly is not wrapped up in a big red bow.
Friday, October 8, 2010
Oh, the Line Forms, On the Right, Babe
So what is it with the Catholic Schools and their pervasive fascination with "the line?"
Form a line to go here.
Get in a line to do this.
Put the desks in a line.
Do you belong in the bus line or the car line?
Stay behind the line.
Don't cross the line.
Color inside the lines.
Go to the end of the line.
Process from the back of the church in a straight line...
What a line of crap!
Is it a matter of headcount?
A matter of uniformity?
A matter of order?
Why does it matter?
And so what I am wondering, following this line of thinking, is what our uniformly dressed, obedient, line-forming little charges learn from all of this towing the line?
That lining up and following the back of the head in front of you without question no matter where it leads will undoubtedly end with something good?
That it is acceptable and even desirable to dress and look exactly like everyone else, right down to not being allowed to wear some element of the Summer ensemble past October 1 no matter how scorching the heat?
For the best results, go from Point A to Point B and then to Point C and so forth in a neat and orderly fashion no matter what the situation?
Comply with the rules and the order of the day without question and you will be rewarded in some predictable way? (No wire hangers!!!!!)
Is this the way we are going to find a cure for Cancer????
I am sure it comes as no surprise to learn that I don't subscribe to this school of thought...if it can be classified as thought at all.
Has anyone at Our Lady of Condemnation or any of her sister schools across the land ever considered how much can be learned from a little chaos?
Because really, what in life routinely and reliably goes along according to plan every time?
How will anyone ever be capable of restoring order from chaos if chaos is an altogether new experience that scares the Holy Ghost out of us?
How will anyone be able to stand calmly in the face of anarchy, and systematically identify what is acceptable and what needs to be changed and decide on a tactical plan when the abnormality of the situation is so bizarre and unnatural that we are immobilized by overwhelming fear of the unknown?
How will anyone, once they are sprung from the safety of captivity, ever successfully negotiate a compromise if there has never been an experience dealing with anyone who has boldly stepped so widely to one side or the other of the line?
How does anyone ever learn to deal with a situation for which no rules seem to apply?
Has anyone ever followed the leader to a scientific breakthrough?
I am all for order, believe me. I like a neat home. I like a desk where I can lay my hands on what I need with little time and effort. I take comfort in being able to expect things - like the garbage to be picked up on Tuesday and Friday. For the green light to follow the red. To get what I believe I've paid for. For my clothes to fit in pretty much the same way from one day to the next.
But in the house I grew up in, there was little predictability. And while it was sometimes a little unsettling, I consider it a gift. Because when things did not go as anticipated, or took an unexpected detour in the general direction of Hell, I had had a little practice in thinking on my little Dr. Scholls-clad feet. And even if I didn't always have the life experience to know what exactly the right thing to do was, I could figure out what made sense given the situation at the moment, no matter how bizarre. Even if what made sense was to simply ask for help, and then to file away what that help looked like - for use on another rainy, or even rainier day.
And this chaos has been good to have experienced - because it is what has made me so interested in and unafraid of people. Including the perfect strangers that sit across a desk from me each day, behind closed doors, telling me their life stories and their motivations, their working life woes and their desires for better things. Their lives of crime, their divorces, the fact that they don't like their current boss because he farts.
There is nothing more frightening and unpredictable than people. It is my comfort with the unexpected that gives me the fearlessness I find so handy at work. Chaos, schmaos. It is all in a days work.
Next!
Form a line to go here.
Get in a line to do this.
Put the desks in a line.
Do you belong in the bus line or the car line?
Stay behind the line.
Don't cross the line.
Color inside the lines.
Go to the end of the line.
Process from the back of the church in a straight line...
What a line of crap!
Is it a matter of headcount?
A matter of uniformity?
A matter of order?
Why does it matter?
And so what I am wondering, following this line of thinking, is what our uniformly dressed, obedient, line-forming little charges learn from all of this towing the line?
That lining up and following the back of the head in front of you without question no matter where it leads will undoubtedly end with something good?
That it is acceptable and even desirable to dress and look exactly like everyone else, right down to not being allowed to wear some element of the Summer ensemble past October 1 no matter how scorching the heat?
For the best results, go from Point A to Point B and then to Point C and so forth in a neat and orderly fashion no matter what the situation?
Comply with the rules and the order of the day without question and you will be rewarded in some predictable way? (No wire hangers!!!!!)
Is this the way we are going to find a cure for Cancer????
I am sure it comes as no surprise to learn that I don't subscribe to this school of thought...if it can be classified as thought at all.
Has anyone at Our Lady of Condemnation or any of her sister schools across the land ever considered how much can be learned from a little chaos?
Because really, what in life routinely and reliably goes along according to plan every time?
How will anyone ever be capable of restoring order from chaos if chaos is an altogether new experience that scares the Holy Ghost out of us?
How will anyone be able to stand calmly in the face of anarchy, and systematically identify what is acceptable and what needs to be changed and decide on a tactical plan when the abnormality of the situation is so bizarre and unnatural that we are immobilized by overwhelming fear of the unknown?
How will anyone, once they are sprung from the safety of captivity, ever successfully negotiate a compromise if there has never been an experience dealing with anyone who has boldly stepped so widely to one side or the other of the line?
How does anyone ever learn to deal with a situation for which no rules seem to apply?
Has anyone ever followed the leader to a scientific breakthrough?
I am all for order, believe me. I like a neat home. I like a desk where I can lay my hands on what I need with little time and effort. I take comfort in being able to expect things - like the garbage to be picked up on Tuesday and Friday. For the green light to follow the red. To get what I believe I've paid for. For my clothes to fit in pretty much the same way from one day to the next.
But in the house I grew up in, there was little predictability. And while it was sometimes a little unsettling, I consider it a gift. Because when things did not go as anticipated, or took an unexpected detour in the general direction of Hell, I had had a little practice in thinking on my little Dr. Scholls-clad feet. And even if I didn't always have the life experience to know what exactly the right thing to do was, I could figure out what made sense given the situation at the moment, no matter how bizarre. Even if what made sense was to simply ask for help, and then to file away what that help looked like - for use on another rainy, or even rainier day.
And this chaos has been good to have experienced - because it is what has made me so interested in and unafraid of people. Including the perfect strangers that sit across a desk from me each day, behind closed doors, telling me their life stories and their motivations, their working life woes and their desires for better things. Their lives of crime, their divorces, the fact that they don't like their current boss because he farts.
There is nothing more frightening and unpredictable than people. It is my comfort with the unexpected that gives me the fearlessness I find so handy at work. Chaos, schmaos. It is all in a days work.
Next!
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Looking in My Rear View Mirror, I Saw Myself One Car Back
I bee-line it to the back of the lot with my children and get into my car, rev the engine and prepare for takeoff.
But like all things at Our Lady of Condemnation, there are rules about this. It must be done fairly and in an orderly fashion. And provoke a maximum amount of frustration.
So as I sit in my car, listening to my children chatter and argue about all manner of pre-pubescent issues, from who has a pimple to who has B.O., to who likes whom, to whose sister told the entire lunch table that he wets the bed, I am growing more and more frustrated with the Pick Up Line.
It's only fair, that we should be dismissed in an orderly fashion. But it is not necessarily the order in which we arrived.
Where when we pulled in, we populated rows from left to right, we are dismissed in columns, right to left. Which makes no difference at all when you were jammed into the last row barely squeaking in between the next car and the iron fence. But people who made it a point to arrive well before the appointed hour are a little pissed under the best of circumstances. It's like when you wait in the turning lane for a whole light series and the bonehead in front of you has positioned his car so as to not trip the signal to let the arrow people go next.
Completely fair or not, it makes no sense at all. Because while many of us are in our cars, motors running and prepared to get the hell out of Dodge, there are a number of parents, okay, mothers mostly, either still in the gym, or standing in the general vicinity of their cars, carrying on lengthy conversations with other mothers, while the rest of us wait.
Horns are blaring. High beams are being flashed. Obscenities yelled from darkened cars. Still, these clueless parents prattle on and on with no end in sight while my children yawn and fade in the back seat. It is, after all, crowding in on 8:30.
Some of them actually acknowledge that they are holding up the works, point their keyless entry fobs in the general direction of their vehicles and let their kids scramble among the (motionless) cars to get in and take a load off.
Yet the mothers themselves - THE DRIVERS - remain engrossed in conversation, evidently so crucial to national security that it can not be delayed, interrupted, continued at a later date and time, or truncated in any way.
And all the while, those cars who remain BEHIND them in the all-important line, wait with homicidal thoughts that are becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.
And if the column next to you should afford enough space for you to go around the unoccupied car in front of you while its driver yammers on oblivious to the mayhem for which they are the root cause, one of the over-zealous volunteer parents will throw himself in front of your car to prevent you from recklessly careening through the lot headed for the exit the like the one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, surely a danger to yourself and others.
And so we wait. And beep and flash our high beams. And swear from our cars not caring if the dashboard lights reveal our identities.
And when we are afforded freedom from the oppression of the Pick Up Line, we do not refrain from glaring at these mothers from our cars as they look back at us with innocent inability to comprehend what the hell you could be so pissed about.
But like all things at Our Lady of Condemnation, there are rules about this. It must be done fairly and in an orderly fashion. And provoke a maximum amount of frustration.
So as I sit in my car, listening to my children chatter and argue about all manner of pre-pubescent issues, from who has a pimple to who has B.O., to who likes whom, to whose sister told the entire lunch table that he wets the bed, I am growing more and more frustrated with the Pick Up Line.
It's only fair, that we should be dismissed in an orderly fashion. But it is not necessarily the order in which we arrived.
Where when we pulled in, we populated rows from left to right, we are dismissed in columns, right to left. Which makes no difference at all when you were jammed into the last row barely squeaking in between the next car and the iron fence. But people who made it a point to arrive well before the appointed hour are a little pissed under the best of circumstances. It's like when you wait in the turning lane for a whole light series and the bonehead in front of you has positioned his car so as to not trip the signal to let the arrow people go next.
Completely fair or not, it makes no sense at all. Because while many of us are in our cars, motors running and prepared to get the hell out of Dodge, there are a number of parents, okay, mothers mostly, either still in the gym, or standing in the general vicinity of their cars, carrying on lengthy conversations with other mothers, while the rest of us wait.
Horns are blaring. High beams are being flashed. Obscenities yelled from darkened cars. Still, these clueless parents prattle on and on with no end in sight while my children yawn and fade in the back seat. It is, after all, crowding in on 8:30.
Some of them actually acknowledge that they are holding up the works, point their keyless entry fobs in the general direction of their vehicles and let their kids scramble among the (motionless) cars to get in and take a load off.
Yet the mothers themselves - THE DRIVERS - remain engrossed in conversation, evidently so crucial to national security that it can not be delayed, interrupted, continued at a later date and time, or truncated in any way.
And all the while, those cars who remain BEHIND them in the all-important line, wait with homicidal thoughts that are becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.
And if the column next to you should afford enough space for you to go around the unoccupied car in front of you while its driver yammers on oblivious to the mayhem for which they are the root cause, one of the over-zealous volunteer parents will throw himself in front of your car to prevent you from recklessly careening through the lot headed for the exit the like the one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, surely a danger to yourself and others.
And so we wait. And beep and flash our high beams. And swear from our cars not caring if the dashboard lights reveal our identities.
And when we are afforded freedom from the oppression of the Pick Up Line, we do not refrain from glaring at these mothers from our cars as they look back at us with innocent inability to comprehend what the hell you could be so pissed about.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
God Bless Us, Everyone
All the catechists stand looking pious near the stage (The gym doubles as an auditorium – and when it does, we are all asked to share our talent for restacking chairs against the walls before leaving the pageant, or devotion, or parent meeting.)
The children are antsy and looking around anxiously for their rescue parents and it is growing louder in spite of Madame Church Lady’s attempts to shush them.
Even though we have just said our closing prayer, we must remain while one final blessing is bestowed upon us all before we dash out to enjoy a week of debauchery and idol worship.
I am standing next to a mother whose demeanor and breath sounds are not unlike a bull that is viciously anticipating goring an arrogant matador.
She church whispers, “This should have been done by now,” and then widens her eyes in disbelief when, after the Amens have been mumbled and we have all Father, Son and Holy Ghosted ourselves one more time, Madame Church Lady begins to remind the children of a few gravely important, last minute things:
- To bring peanut butter or jelly or both to the food drive for the children who don’t have all the gifts we regularly enjoy.
- To remind their (heathen) Confirmation sponsors that their letters and eligibility forms are due
- That October is Respect for Life Month (so don’t go scheduling any abortions!)
- Blah blah blah blah blah. Yakkety yakkety yakkety.
And all the while the children and their agitated parents are thinking:
- I missing Dancing with the Stars.
- I still have to finish my science project
- I have hours of laundry folding and lunch packing to complete
- I am going to pee my pants if we don’t get out of here soon
And then, unable to tolerate even one more sweetly enunciated syllable, the bull-like lady finally comes untethered from her moorings and stomps over to where her child is fidgeting with the contents of his RES folder, grabs him by the sleeve of his jacket, spins defiantly and ushers him out the back door to the parking lot.
I am shocked that some volunteer posse of RES police do not attempt to detain her while Madame Church Lady prattles the last remaining comments about some approaching feast day for St. John the Dwarf.
But human nature is what it is, and once one kid has gone over the wall, there is nothing to stop the others.
It is pandemonium as children race about the gym to find their reconnaissance parent.
And in our effort to avoid eye contact with the catechists who are shaking their heads and clucking in “they know not what they do” superiority, we bolt for the doors to get in our car.
And there, friends, is where the real fun begins.
The children are antsy and looking around anxiously for their rescue parents and it is growing louder in spite of Madame Church Lady’s attempts to shush them.
Even though we have just said our closing prayer, we must remain while one final blessing is bestowed upon us all before we dash out to enjoy a week of debauchery and idol worship.
I am standing next to a mother whose demeanor and breath sounds are not unlike a bull that is viciously anticipating goring an arrogant matador.
She church whispers, “This should have been done by now,” and then widens her eyes in disbelief when, after the Amens have been mumbled and we have all Father, Son and Holy Ghosted ourselves one more time, Madame Church Lady begins to remind the children of a few gravely important, last minute things:
- To bring peanut butter or jelly or both to the food drive for the children who don’t have all the gifts we regularly enjoy.
- To remind their (heathen) Confirmation sponsors that their letters and eligibility forms are due
- That October is Respect for Life Month (so don’t go scheduling any abortions!)
- Blah blah blah blah blah. Yakkety yakkety yakkety.
And all the while the children and their agitated parents are thinking:
- I missing Dancing with the Stars.
- I still have to finish my science project
- I have hours of laundry folding and lunch packing to complete
- I am going to pee my pants if we don’t get out of here soon
And then, unable to tolerate even one more sweetly enunciated syllable, the bull-like lady finally comes untethered from her moorings and stomps over to where her child is fidgeting with the contents of his RES folder, grabs him by the sleeve of his jacket, spins defiantly and ushers him out the back door to the parking lot.
I am shocked that some volunteer posse of RES police do not attempt to detain her while Madame Church Lady prattles the last remaining comments about some approaching feast day for St. John the Dwarf.
But human nature is what it is, and once one kid has gone over the wall, there is nothing to stop the others.
It is pandemonium as children race about the gym to find their reconnaissance parent.
And in our effort to avoid eye contact with the catechists who are shaking their heads and clucking in “they know not what they do” superiority, we bolt for the doors to get in our car.
And there, friends, is where the real fun begins.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! His Horn Goes BeepBeepBeep!
Now all the horns are going. The regular citizens are cursing at the RES vehicles. The RES drivers are screeching insults at the frantic volunteers. The volunteers are infighting out of sheer frustration.
It's like when the Titanic crew realized they were a few dozen life boats short.
And then someone gets the bright idea that if each car takes three giant steps forward and Mother-May-I's its way a few feet closer to the building and (gasp!) a few inches closer to the bumper in front of it covered in stickers pleading for your organs to be donated and for you to break for some unfortunate species, we might just be able to squeeze in the last few remaining overheating cars.
Of course, the volume problem would be solved entirely if they'd just unlock the gates to the damn Pit.
But rules are rules.
I park my car where I'm told, slam the door impressively, glare at the spineless volunteer until he turns away, and march into the gym to take my place among the other seething parents. And the parents who have been there for hours and have the blood pressure and heart rate of the Dalai Lama.
It's 8:02 pm and the children have not yet returned to the gym.
In fact, Madame Church Lady has just opened the mike to the ancient PA system and is just now crackling to her charges about a closing prayer.
Which we are encouraged to recite along with them - and which will be completed before the children are dismissed.
Dismissed to be walked in obedient single-file lines into the gym where they will be seated in the same lines in front of the little pieces of paper bearing their classroom numbers, and wait to be dismissed again.
While a string of obscenities takes shape in the boiling head of Pissy Patty Potty Mouth.
It's like when the Titanic crew realized they were a few dozen life boats short.
And then someone gets the bright idea that if each car takes three giant steps forward and Mother-May-I's its way a few feet closer to the building and (gasp!) a few inches closer to the bumper in front of it covered in stickers pleading for your organs to be donated and for you to break for some unfortunate species, we might just be able to squeeze in the last few remaining overheating cars.
Of course, the volume problem would be solved entirely if they'd just unlock the gates to the damn Pit.
But rules are rules.
I park my car where I'm told, slam the door impressively, glare at the spineless volunteer until he turns away, and march into the gym to take my place among the other seething parents. And the parents who have been there for hours and have the blood pressure and heart rate of the Dalai Lama.
It's 8:02 pm and the children have not yet returned to the gym.
In fact, Madame Church Lady has just opened the mike to the ancient PA system and is just now crackling to her charges about a closing prayer.
Which we are encouraged to recite along with them - and which will be completed before the children are dismissed.
Dismissed to be walked in obedient single-file lines into the gym where they will be seated in the same lines in front of the little pieces of paper bearing their classroom numbers, and wait to be dismissed again.
While a string of obscenities takes shape in the boiling head of Pissy Patty Potty Mouth.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Damn This Traffic Jam
Since I only have one child still in the purgatory that is RES, I drop her off and generally I run an errand with my son - eyebrow wax for me, or new gym uniform for him, or maybe a trip to a water ice place before it gets too cold to enjoy a gelato.
But the sense of order and control is short-lived and overshadowed with a sense of impending doom. RES ends at 8 pm - and I must retrieve my child from the inspired madness fueled by untrained volunteers.
A few minutes before 8, I make my approach to Our Lady of Condemnation.
The lot is nearly full - at 8 minutes to the hour! Do these people have nothing better to do than to sit and while away precious moments behind the wheels of their minivans? Are their lives so bereft of meaning that they'd voluntarily spend a free hour idling in their environmentally conscientious hybrid vehicles just to get a favorable spot in the parking lot?
I cruise past the mayhem and around the corner to The Pit - the lower parking lot that doubles as a playground. As if playing were allowed at Our Lady of Condemnation.
It is the Rebel Lot.
Because the RES folks (the BOARD?) want to be able to say they have things completely under control, the gates to The Pit, like tonight, are often closed. A deterrent for lazier rebels.
Not that easily defeated, I do what I generally do - for myself and in service to the other rebels. I put the car in neutral, yank on the parking brake, and go to prop open the gates. (I've broken many a nail moving the trash can in front of the gate that tends to drift...)
But this time, the RES tyrants have gotten wise to us. They've locked the #%&*%$ gates.
I am swearing on church property.
Pissed beyond the point of redemption, I return to my car, and lay wheels all the way through the neighborhood that abuts Our Lady of Condemnation, circle the rectory, and return to the parking lot "manned" by the volunteers who believe themselves to be doing God's work.
It, like the lot on the Sundays when there is a "special Mass," is jammed to capacity (because no one has ever done the math and figured out that X cars will never fit in a lot designed for X-Y cars. Even if you remove their hats. Popes in a Volkswagon!) The volunteers have directed all of the drivers to park in nice neat columns and rows in the exact order in which they appeared in the lot.
And now, about 6 cars are in various positions half way in and half way out of the lot, or blocking a lane of traffic, or impeding the progress of drivers in the opposite lane of traffic.
While the local police officer keeps a watchful eye, preserving order and preventing road rage.
Pissy Patty Potty Mouth is about to make another appearance.
But the sense of order and control is short-lived and overshadowed with a sense of impending doom. RES ends at 8 pm - and I must retrieve my child from the inspired madness fueled by untrained volunteers.
A few minutes before 8, I make my approach to Our Lady of Condemnation.
The lot is nearly full - at 8 minutes to the hour! Do these people have nothing better to do than to sit and while away precious moments behind the wheels of their minivans? Are their lives so bereft of meaning that they'd voluntarily spend a free hour idling in their environmentally conscientious hybrid vehicles just to get a favorable spot in the parking lot?
I cruise past the mayhem and around the corner to The Pit - the lower parking lot that doubles as a playground. As if playing were allowed at Our Lady of Condemnation.
It is the Rebel Lot.
Because the RES folks (the BOARD?) want to be able to say they have things completely under control, the gates to The Pit, like tonight, are often closed. A deterrent for lazier rebels.
Not that easily defeated, I do what I generally do - for myself and in service to the other rebels. I put the car in neutral, yank on the parking brake, and go to prop open the gates. (I've broken many a nail moving the trash can in front of the gate that tends to drift...)
But this time, the RES tyrants have gotten wise to us. They've locked the #%&*%$ gates.
I am swearing on church property.
Pissed beyond the point of redemption, I return to my car, and lay wheels all the way through the neighborhood that abuts Our Lady of Condemnation, circle the rectory, and return to the parking lot "manned" by the volunteers who believe themselves to be doing God's work.
It, like the lot on the Sundays when there is a "special Mass," is jammed to capacity (because no one has ever done the math and figured out that X cars will never fit in a lot designed for X-Y cars. Even if you remove their hats. Popes in a Volkswagon!) The volunteers have directed all of the drivers to park in nice neat columns and rows in the exact order in which they appeared in the lot.
And now, about 6 cars are in various positions half way in and half way out of the lot, or blocking a lane of traffic, or impeding the progress of drivers in the opposite lane of traffic.
While the local police officer keeps a watchful eye, preserving order and preventing road rage.
Pissy Patty Potty Mouth is about to make another appearance.
Friday, October 1, 2010
Manic Monday
And of course, as if there weren’t enough after-dinner obligations, there is the annual return to RES. Like the swallows to San Juan Capistrano only with no festival and no parade and no joyous bell ringing and no guarantee that anyone will be protected inside the walls of the church.
RES – known back in the day as Sunday School, and then CCD (whatever that stood for). I am not even clear what RES stands for. Religious Education for the Spawn of Hell?
RES is on Mondays. No longer offered on Sunday. Which is fine by me because 75 minutes of force fed religious education followed by an hour of Mass is a little too much squirming quietly in the hands of God in our dress-up clothes for my children.
There are two Monday options. There is 4 pm Monday class. Attended only by those children who have a parent at home coloring with them all day and maybe making meals for shut-ins.
And there is 6:45 pm. Which all of the apparent wards of the state attend.
So one night a week, I race from my office and break every traffic convention getting in the door by 6, to warm up a pre-assembled meal I prepared the night before under duress, choke down a plateful while discussing homework, and permission slips, and quiz grades, and what child visited which injustice to the other on the walk home, and then inspecting each of their clothes, hands and faces for cleanliness.
It is one thing to be the spawn of Hell. It is another thing altogether to look like the spawn of Hell.
And then we race to Our Lady of Condemnation with all the other inhabitants of Hell, to be guided through the drop off line by some volunteer parents, so some other enthusiastic volunteer parents can assist the children in getting safely from the car to the building.
Are we in Beirut?
And though the drop off line is a total pain and completely without value, what galls me the most is that it reminds me of what I am in store for with these overly zealous volunteer parents when I return in 75 minutes.
The Three Stooges episode that is The Pickup Line.
RES – known back in the day as Sunday School, and then CCD (whatever that stood for). I am not even clear what RES stands for. Religious Education for the Spawn of Hell?
RES is on Mondays. No longer offered on Sunday. Which is fine by me because 75 minutes of force fed religious education followed by an hour of Mass is a little too much squirming quietly in the hands of God in our dress-up clothes for my children.
There are two Monday options. There is 4 pm Monday class. Attended only by those children who have a parent at home coloring with them all day and maybe making meals for shut-ins.
And there is 6:45 pm. Which all of the apparent wards of the state attend.
So one night a week, I race from my office and break every traffic convention getting in the door by 6, to warm up a pre-assembled meal I prepared the night before under duress, choke down a plateful while discussing homework, and permission slips, and quiz grades, and what child visited which injustice to the other on the walk home, and then inspecting each of their clothes, hands and faces for cleanliness.
It is one thing to be the spawn of Hell. It is another thing altogether to look like the spawn of Hell.
And then we race to Our Lady of Condemnation with all the other inhabitants of Hell, to be guided through the drop off line by some volunteer parents, so some other enthusiastic volunteer parents can assist the children in getting safely from the car to the building.
Are we in Beirut?
And though the drop off line is a total pain and completely without value, what galls me the most is that it reminds me of what I am in store for with these overly zealous volunteer parents when I return in 75 minutes.
The Three Stooges episode that is The Pickup Line.
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