Hey..here’s an idea…
February 27th, 2010 noelHow about not making a sarcastic comment about the very thing that got me so upset the day before. Just a suggestion:)
How about not making a sarcastic comment about the very thing that got me so upset the day before. Just a suggestion:)
Have I built a wall? I mean, I don’t think I’m the sort of person who builds walls- I’m pretty sociable, I generally like being around people, but there is something that is inside me that has become scared of people.
I went to the grocery store with Desmond, My friend Jen’s newborn son, and I had so much fun just hanging out with a baby. I felt like there was nobody to answer to- nobody to judge me and nobody making fast generalization about who I am or what I do. It felt so safe. I feel that way with Mia to, that I can just be myself. I can just give her everything I am and she loves me no matter what. She doesn’t have any expectations of me, except that I love her and that I will continue to love her.
But, at the same time, I fell- lopsided. Like there is a part of me missing. Like my life is less complete without a group of people that I turn to, that help shape me, that challenge me and all my crazy notions of what is right.
There is nobody sitting there saying ” Noel, you need to stop writing in your stupid little blog that nobody reads and get down to your school work.” And David won’t say it- he loves to much. I need people who like me, just like me. I don’t need anymore love, I don’t need anymore affection. I just need some people who kind like being around me.
So, I am successful in my attempts at solitude, but have failed at the execution of it all.
There is a dirty little secret about marriage that nobody talks about. A secret little problem that is never covered in articles or i9nternet discussion boards. In the deep, dark basement of relationships, there is a waterlogged box that holds the musty smell of difficulty…
The best friend.
When you get married, you anticipate the difficulty of an inherited family- a mew mother in law, a sister in law who might have a drinking problem, or the grandparents-in-law who serve you canned spinach that tastes like you thought spinach tasted like when you were four years old… but you can forgive those things, because he will always be your mother-in-laws baby, and his sister lives far away, and his grandparents grew up in the depression. However, the best friend is a different story. They are a family of choice, and you must inherit the friendship as one of your own. You must accept this person as a consequence of your relationship, and tread carefully on the context of that relationship.
This is my new battle. I did not pick this person as a friend, and I owuld not pick this person as the cornerstone of friendship, but there he is, driving me into an chaos that is so contrary to my nature. The basic truth of my relationship to the best friend is that we are completely different kinds of people- I have a ying- and he possesses no yang. We This is the kind of person that grinds at me in a way that I can only describe as pestilent. The kind of itch that bother you so badly that you will happy pour bleach on the poison ivy, and feel a sense of satisfaction that although you are writhing in pain, you are excited to not be itchy anymore.
I think you get my point…
So, I have happily bit my tongue for 4 long years- reducing the itch to a mere discomfort with hopes that my good thoughts would will the long to itch away. I pushed it all away, made nice for the sake of my marriage, and hoped there would come a day where it didn’t bother me so badly. But, something interesting happened in that time. I came to actually care about the best friend. I wanted good things, I wanted happiness for the inherited friendship, and when he was in pain, I worried about him. I have come to understand that good will was, indeed, one sided. He has pegged me into a corner in his mind, and I can not escape that corner. I am a stereotype to him, and every step I take fulfills that stereotype in his mind.
All this time, I have been trying to work beyond the constraints of our inherited friendship- make him into a person instead of the best friend of my husband, while he has reduced me down to nothing more than David’s bitchy, elitist, liberal wife.
To be fair, I am simply estimating those are his thoughts. I don’t really have much more to work from than his reactions to my gestures, which have always been made in vain. There have only been hints that is what he thinks of me on a few occasions, and I don’t mean to put word in his mouth or thoughts in his head. Truth is that I only think this way because while I have tried to do nice things, I have not deen much return, and so my estimation is based on the worse case scenario. Perhaps I have diagnosed too much… but the only other scenario is that he doesn’t think about me at all..which might actually be worse.
I am still slightly stuck in what to do about this. I have come to several viable options, but all of them require some amount of sacrifice, and nne of them seem like a perfect answer.
Maybe there is no answer, only compromise… but from who?
Apparently, my subconscious has no interest in the information included in my dreams being factual, relevant, or even close to truthful. I know this comes as no great truth to anyone- I mean, that’s what dreams are, right!? The only time it really bothers me is when it sticks a story in my brain that does what has been done to me tonight. It fucks with me, pulls people out of my past, makes them into a character of themselves, and creates a story in my brain that would never happen.
I have fallen victim to this before. Too many times to be exact. It’s usually the same person- some mythology I have created in my own head of a person I use to know.
These dreams use to make me happy for a second…that this person still lived on, even only in my head. Now they just make me wish I never knew them.
Time for some bad poetry.
We have moved. We have not moved far, about an hour, but it seems like a world away, nonetheless. Our old house is empty, our new house is full, and our lives are moving on.
I am rejuvenated, reborn, and it shows in every thing I do. I was in such as bad place- I didn’t want to get up and go anywhere because I felt so stuck. But now…now I have a constant longing to do and go and make our lives into the great thing that I know they are.
I think a part of me will always be wounded by Chester. It gave me a glimpse at a way of life that I didn’t know existed, and I think that I will miss the bliss of that ignorance. I will forever look over my shoulder, wondering what kind of close-minded bullshit lurks in the corners of this crazy world. I was so lost by the sadness of it all. And not even the kind of sadness that you can be inspired by…or even justified by. It was just sad, and I was sad within it. I don’t know that I will ever be able to look at people the same way. I am scarred by the knowledge that people live their lives never wanting a better life for others, and feeling sanctimonious about their position because their preacher or their friends or their congressman tells them it’s okay. I always thought that people like that were a stereotype- a characture of themselves that has be amplified to make a point. They are not. They do cling to guns and God. They do hate gay people. They do hate in general. They drink the kool-aid of people like Beck and Hannity, only to start making their own batches at home. And they cannot see that their hatred is what is causing the world around them to crumble ( don’t give the black guy a job, but bitch openly when the balck community around you is poor).
I am hoping that I can find something in this that makes it all worth it. Perhaps I will finally buckle down and write down all the short stories I have gathered in my mind to tell the tale of the liberal yankee in the south. Maybe I will find a way to fight those small minds from a distance, where they can’t impact the life of my very little girl. Maybe they are too lazy to drive all the way up to Charlotte to burn a cross in my front yard.
I might never be free of what Chester did to me, but I can make a choice about what I do with it. And I choose to make the most of a bad situation.
There are many things I wish for. More money- that’s a given. Everything that comes with more money. Again, a given.
I think the thing I wish for most is an ability to maintain relationships. It’s not something I’m very good at. The big relationship, my marriage, that’s not so hard, but I have made so many mistakes in my relationships with people over the years. Why couldn’t I keep those relationships together? Why couldn’t I just make it work- despite time and distance, or disagreement and fighting. I could have made it better, in the moment- but I couldn’t seem to do it. Maybe I was scared, maybe I am just too weak to see them through- to make them work no matter what.
I miss those people, the ones that have come and gone throughout my life. I wish I could just call them today- tell them everything I am sorry for- even though I don’t really know what that is.
I guess the thing I am the most sorry for is that I can be difficult- I can be stubborn and needy at the same time. I can be passive agressive. I tell you exactly what I think about you, but have a very hard time turning that onto myself. I am almost impossible to live with, and even harder to be friends with. I have ruined all of these relationships, and it tears me apart.
I don’t know if making those connections again would make it better, but I wouldn’t know where to begin. Or maybe my mother is right…maybe I just need to let it go.
So, here is the back story. I was friends with this girl in High School, we’ll call her Jan. Jan and I were really good friends, even better friends after I left high school. She and I did everything together for a few years there. She worked where I worked, she even moved in with me for a little while. We went to NYC to see the ball drop in Times Square. We had some really great times, and I thought she was going to be one of those friends that I know forever.
When she and I were 19, she got pregnant. I was working at the same steakhouse that she worked at, so we saw each other all the time. She had the baby, a little girl, and while she and I sorta drifted apart, I would still call her every few months. The next year, I was about to move out of state, and I called her to tell her about it. I remember the phone call, and I thought that I was leaving on good terms with her. I told her I would miss her, and that I would keep touch.
Over the next 2 years, I would try to call her, but she had moved, and I couldn’t find her. I called her mother’s house 5 times in a year, asking them to pass my number on to her. She never called me back, and I have looked for her on the internet every few months for the past 10 years.
Fast forward to a month ago. I go on to one of my other friends pages, and I see that Jan is on Facebook! It must be recent, because I look for her all the time. I am so excited, until I realize that she has been on facebook for about a month- and she is friends with a whole BUNCH of my facebook friends- so she must know I’m on here, right? Suddenly, it occurs to me that she didn’t friend me. She must have seen my name and picture, but she didn’t friend me!! She’s facebook friends with people she didn’t even really get along with in High School, but not me!
I was crushed..I mean, I thought we were close- I thought that if she could have gotten in touch with me, she would have- but maybe that wasn’t the case. It now occurs to me that she doesn’t want to know me again, she isn’t my friend, and she doesn’t want to have anything to do with me.
Now, I know the adult thing to do is to message her, but I don’t want to- I can’t stand rejection, and I don’t know that I could handle rejection from her. A week or so ago, another friend of mine on facebook recommended we have a get-together. All of the old gang. I was hesitant. I still am. I want to see these people so badly, but I don’t know if I am prepared to revisit old memories.
So, last night, I had a dream that this reunion happened, and Jan was there- and completely ignored me. She wouldn’t talk to me- wouldn’t even look at me! I woke up from the dream very upset- tears coming out of my eyes. What have I done that this girl, who I think the world of, won’t communicate with me.
I hate this- it’s infected my brain and I’m at a loss. This is the secret power of Social Networking.
I am having a hard time sleeping these days, and I can’t really explain why. I feel uncomfortable all of the time..I can’t quiet my brain, and my body follows suit. I can only fall asleep after 2am, and only in front of a TV that is taking my mind away from itself.
It’s not insomnia, it’s more like restless brain syndrom. And no matter how sleepy I am, I can’t shut it off.
Most of the time
I am just trying to make it through the day
children to feed
books to read
groceries to buy
clothes to dry
bills to be paid
beds to be made
garbage to take out
relationships to doubt
babies to nurture
dusting the furniture
cooking a meal
learning to deal
facing my fears
holding back tears
trying to survive
keeping the passion alive
being kind to humanity
keeping my sanity
keep the house clean
try not be mean
think of others
be a great mother
be a great wife
maintain my own life
Most of the time
I am just trying to make it through the day
I am unconvinced
that I can keep a secret
that I can be conspicuous
that I control the way I walk
down tiny streets
I make too much noise to be sly
I am unconvinced
that I am a goddess
that I am worshipped
that I have any power
over anyone or anything
that doesn’t live in a cage
I am unconvinced
that I am a woman
that I can nurture
that I can be still and mysterious
my fair skin yeilds clear scars
I am unconvinced
that I am whole
that I am complete
that I can bend
the small cracks are showing
and I cannot be fixed