No no...I'm the crazy one

I'm dating. I knew I had to start sometime so I dove in earlier this year knowing full well I wasn't ready. Sounds mean, I know. But I knew I'd have some freak outs and I wanted to be through them all by the time I met someone nice. So I signed up on match. I did things like I usually do. Aggressively. I wrote, I responded, I winked. I went on a bunch of dates, all pretty lame. Some shockingly weird (the text about needing anal sex EVERY TIME after only one date and no hanky panky took the cake). I'd never dated in the age of texting or sexting or whatever the kids are calling it these days. I met my husband when I was 25. It was the mid-90s. I didn't have a cell phone and he didn't even have a regular phone (I'm not going to get into that one.) So this whole brazen sex maniac via technology thing was a little weird to me.

I found one booty call guy. He was hot (think Jacob from Twilight but 42). And nice enough. And, despite being my age, seemed to have limitless sex drive. That was fun. Got me over the hump, so to speak. I dated another. He was weird. I knew from the first. But I thought: maybe my filter is off. He seems nice. Maybe I don't know how to do nice? I don't. But that doesn't change the fact that he was weird. Soft and controlling at the same time. In a men's group. Ick. Not a good combination.

And now I've met someone actually nice. Lets call him "J". He's a grown up. He owns small businesses. He has two kids but has never been married. The youngest child he had with his best friend because she was on the brink of 40 and wanted to have a baby and he thought she deserved that. Good egg, this one. He's never been in a relationship, which certainly causes me pause. But he's decided that is what he wants, what he needs in his life. In fact, he's open about wanting to be married. Something I don't think I want. He pays, he's affectionate, he does chivalry well. He's easy to talk to and very open about his journey to this point in his life. I crossed over with him on a date last week. Sheerly because of how open he is. It cracked my heart a little.

And I realized I'd been comparing. I'd been wanting all the things I miss and love about my ex - his brain, his sense of humor (sometimes he'd laugh til he cried and when I was the one who prompted it... well there was no better feeling), his handsome face - and none of the things that didn't work - his darkness, his judgmental and controlling nature, his under employed-ness. And I wanted the things I didn't like corrected (meaning: emotionally "light" but still deep, open, working in a real job with real paychecks). This isn't how it works. It's not a Chinese menu. I have to start from blankness. No expectations. And J's wide eyed openness jarred me into this realization. He has no comparison for me. He's naturally starting from a blank slate. Which is how it needs to be done.

Another plus: he thinks I'm a little nutty. And I am. I'm a tad compulsive, a tad neurotic, very competitive, I go from happy to sad in nothing flat. I've joked with my therapist that I'm manic depressive "light" and he didn't protest.

I'm not sure why J thinks I'm nutty. I haven't let this side show too much (or maybe I have). But he texted me one morning (see what I mean about the texting): has anyone ever told you you're a nut? At first I took offense. But only slightly. And then I realized, he's right. And that's ok. He likes it. He finds it charming. And I am supposed to be the nut in the relationship. But for years, I couldn't be. My ex was so dark, and emotionally up and down, and angry and off kilter that I had to be the sane one. The even tempered, get-up-and-deal-no-matter-what one. And I'm supposed to be the kook. I was denied my kookiness! And I felt out of touch with myself.

So I'm enjoying it. I get to be the wacky, just slightly off kilter nutbag. The off kilter nutbag that is still highly competent (no one wants an actual crazy person). We'll see where it goes. He's ready to jump in faster than I am. But he knows this. I'm honest about where I am. Crazy and all.

Clear eyes, full hearts...farewell

And it's over. The best show that has ever been on television. The best one hour drama, anyway. There I said it. It is the best. I don't care about the fact that it's been on and off the air a gazillion times since its inception. I don't care that audiences haven't quite known what to make of this earnest but never sappy family affair. Is it about football? Is it about life? Both dummy. Figure it out. It's about football giving meaning to lives in Texas. It's about football as a metaphor. It's about giving everything and sometimes getting nothing back. It's about perfect moments that sometimes don't lead to perfect lives. It's about marriage and friendship and potential that doesn't always turn into progress or prosperity.

What a satisfying finale. Emotional, intelligent, wrapped up but not too neatly. Self referential - so many circles tied back to the first episode. But open and surprising at the same time. All of our beloved characters were back (except, notably, Lyla Garrity, who arguably, was the least liked character). Mattie, Riggins, Tyra, we even caught a glimpse of Landry - though not with Tyra - with Matt, one of the moments that suggested that some things never change. These two yahoos acting dumb and clueless in the garage.

I started out thinking, I'm not even emotional. Look at me, not even crying. Maybe I've gotten more stable in the last few months since I started watching this show. Hah. As soon as Matt asked Julie to marry him - stupid dumb ass teenagers - I wept. "Wept" is a misnomer for what I did. My face crinkled up, folded in on itself and I choked on my own sobs. Why? These two shouldn't get married! They're 18 and 19 for God's sake! But the sweetness of the belief in first love was more than I could bear. I want to believe too! After that I didn't stop crying. So basically I cried once. And it lasted the entire show. It escalated at critical moments, sometimes unexpectedly - when Coach tells Riggins he can ask him for anything, when Becca tells Riggins "I'm finally over my crush. Friends?" "Family," he replies. (I don't even like Becca.) Tyra and Tim dancing at Buddy's bar. Coach and Tami hugging outside the restaurant after she tells him, without hope that he might listen: "It's my turn." And, of course, later, when he concedes: "It's your turn. I want to go to Philadelphia. Will you take me to Philadelphia with you?" That killed me. He didn't say: "I'll go to Philadelphia." He said he wanted to. And he asked if she'd take him because he knew he'd fucked up. Gimme some of that man.

The Taylors are better than me. Better than me and my almost ex-husband. If we were half as good we wouldn't be soon to be exes. I got mad and resentful that I felt boxed in by his narrow and ever more restricting requirements. I showed no moderation or influence, as Tami does, in expressing my frustration. And he showed no remorse or willingness to compromise. And here we are. God, I love the Taylors. Tami - you are my hero. Eric - you are my soulmate. And yes - I am nuts.

This episode surpassed my former all time favorite finale - Six Feet Under. That one left me with a crying hangover for a week. I was exhausted from the truth of it all. This one leaves me wanting more. I want to know what happens next. These people feel like my friends. How will Vince do in college? Will he make it? I know the Taylors will fare well in Philadelphia. Will Tim and Tyra make maybe into yes one day? Her in local politics, him fixing cars and building houses always with a cold beer in his hand, always satisfied and always proud of his beautiful, driven wife who has loved him since she was 5 years old? What is going to happen? I get to remember them as young and beautiful and hopeful, not beaten down and angry and divorced. I love that. Though I long for just a little more time with the Dillon-ites, I recognize it ended at the perfect time. Everyone, with clear eyes and full hearts...and of course, we know that means, they can't lose. No matter what happens.

I Heart Tami Taylor

I know my total obsession with Friday Night Lights is tiresome. I know it borders on obsessive and that makes it, if not me, kooky. Foolish. Misguided. A wing nut. But words and books and movies and sometimes even television can inspire compulsive, overwrought emotion in me. Something is exposed in such a way that makes me go: I know! I've been there! I feel that way too! Or...I never thought of it that way! Or simply...those words are beautiful. Those sentiments worth remembering.

And while I don't expect this from my pop culture diet, it sometimes happens. And Friday Night Lights is that, for me. So it was with great relief that I had a conversation with Christina W last night, an old college acquaintance, and very close friend of my sister-in-law, about our shared obsession. Her eyes lit up, like mine, in our shared and urgent passion for the show, the characters, the town of Dillon, the Panthers and Lions, the Taylors as a couple. And, of course, Riggins. Ahhhh, Riggins.

I know, it seems kind of pathetic. But I'll take my inspiration where I can get it, even a TV show that has had trouble staying on the air over the last 5 seasons. These flawed characters that try their best and often fail are a rarity in any kind of media. How often do you see the star of the football team barely get into college, go for a few weeks and then drop out before finishing a single semester? No, we like our stars to be just that ... Stars. And stay that way once their talent gets recognized. We may like underdogs but once that underdog gets over, we want him to stay there. We don't want him spending the rest of his life as a bar back in a shitty town with too many kids, an enlarged liver and not enough money. But that shit happens. And still, he might be a good guy despite his misery and hardship. It's real! It's gritty. Oh the sheer heart of it.

After the standard tour of duty recounting the characters - Tyra, Tim, Matt, Landry - we landed on the coach's wife. Our admiration for Tami Taylor figures most prominently in our obsession. I mean, the woman is never wrong. Her husband even admits she's never wrong. AND, she's beautiful, smart, honest. She loves her children - her real ones and those she councils in school - without restraint. She supports her husband while remaining an individual. She's a feminist...in Texas! She always has a glass of chardonnay close by, she doesn't appear to get Botox but still looks super hot. Oh, and did I mention, her husband often says: "You were right. I was wrong. I ahhh-pah-logize." (Texan for "I'm sorry, baby.") And she never holds a grudge. This woman is a saint.

My girl Christina even keeps a book of "Things I need to remember that Connie Britton (aka Tami Taylor) says." (Maybe she was joking? Oh well, I took her seriously, such is my compulsion.) I need to do this. If I'd had half Tami's patience and equanimity, I might still be married. Though my husband wasn't Eric Taylor, so perhaps not.

Rather than recount all of Tami's witticisms, sage moments and downright clairvoyance, I will simply recount her best moment last night. After being offered an opportunity as the Dean of Admissions at a college in Philadelphia, after enduring years (well, 2 seasons) as a guidance counselor/high school principal in a single stoplight town (read: shit hole), and following her husband all over creation in his pursuit of high school football greatness, she wants to accept this offer. Eric is none too pleased. "We live in Texas," he says. "I coach the Lions." Dick. (I still love him, he just loses perspective sometimes, but as a 'maker of men' I forgive him).

When he is offered the sole remaining football coaching job in town, after the School Board combines the two teams, and he is to resume his post at the Panthers, the very team that canned him a few seasons back, Tami simply says: "And now, I'm going to say to you, the thing that you haven't had the grace to say to me. Congratulations." And she means it too. I can tell. But then she walks away. She doesn't yell. She doesn't cry or throw a tantrum. She is hurt, yes. And she quietly makes her point without losing any credibility by being hysterical.

Is this possible in real life when emotions run high and there is no script provided? Hard to say. I've not been very good at it. I aim to do better when I get another chance.

(And by the way, this article from a few weeks back in the NYT which compares FNL to Glee, is the best assessment of why this damn show is so damn good.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/05/magazine/how-football-players-got-trounced-by-glee.html?pagewanted=1

Mother's and Daughters...by Rae Meadows

I just finished reading "Mother's and Daughters" by my good friend Rae Meadows. I'm ashamed that it took me so long to read. Her past books, I've read in manuscript form. This one has been out on the shelves for months, sitting on my night stand, uncracked. But boy am I proud of her. What a lovely moving story. It follows three women. Three mothers, three daughters. And of course, their lives are intertwined. Like in "The Hours", we learn of their connection as we amble through the pages of the book. But there is no trickery or drawing out of their relationships - their experiences as both mothers and daughters lead us there seamlessly.

There is some little known history in the book that enlightens us about orphan trains, which took poor children from New York City to the mid-west to find Christian homes in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Some kids found homes, others were dumped into indentured servitude. While the Christian Aid Society meant well, all stories did not end well. Still, many consider these orphan trains and the Aid Society to be the pre-cursor to modern day foster care. But...this is not the most interesting part of the book. Maybe because I'm generally not one to be swept up by facts.

For me, history is never the most meditative or lyrical aspect of any story. It is true therefore there is nothing on which to linger, however heart tugging it may be. It is information. Period.

The remarkable thing about this book is the honesty. The way it holds up motherhood and daughterhood and examines it from all sides. The excruciating contrasts - the adoration and resentment, the loving obsession and the fear, the intimacy of knowing and the distance that is inevitable because we are separate people from our daughters and our mothers, after all.

I loved this book. Its poignancy made me weep. Its truth in the emotional contradictions of being a mother wrenched my heart.

And I am so so so so proud of my friend Rap for putting these words together for us to feel moved and enlightened by.

:-)

I think my insides are black and rotten. Must work on peace love and happiness. And not just for myself. Wishing it for HIM as well. Ok... here I go.

It's not going well...

Independence Day

I was bolt upright again in the middle of the night. Wide awake. This time it was 2 a.m. Even after swallowing 2 Advil PMs, I was bright eyed and bushy tailed. Maybe not that. I was awake. And I was tense. And angry. And generally contorted. AHHHH... when will this go away? These realizations that twist me even further in knots? These epiphanies that should bring clarity but bring more resentment, vexation. Contortion.

And then it is morning. And I am clear-headed and rational. I can breathe again. How is it that the night time always brings such madness? Is it because there is no light to let in reason? Or because there are no distractions from the irritations? So the irritations become picked scabs, red and inflamed and unmanageable. I think it's the latter.

And now it's July 4th. Yay. I will celebrate with my friends, watch fireworks from the roof. I'll enjoy not having to take the kids into account, worry if they're bored, but I'll miss them all the while. The holidays pass and I make slow progress towards...what I don't know. I feel like my life is time lapse photography, the holiday celebrations markers but time moving quickly in between. All the same people, all the same problems. But no Winslow. Is it better or worse? I think better. Maybe. I still can't say for sure.

I am stuck. I know I shouldn't be with him. But I can't let go of our family. And I can't not be mad that he is reinventing himself as outgoing and affectionate and un-angry for someone else.

On the flip side of my crazy, I had a great first date. B. Handsome. Small business owner. Seemingly chivalrous - he paid without hesitation. I'll see him again this week. I'll let him lead on this. And I will allow myself to be led. Hopefully somewhere pleasant where there is less anguish, agita and general unease. It would also be nice if there was a kind word, a hand hold and maybe even a full night's sleep in this magical place that I'm almost certain I will find one day, whether or not B is the one to take me there.

I should add...

Per the last post, I still wish he'd reconsider and take me back. But is it because I think we'd be happy? Maybe. I think it's possible. But mostly I think it's because... just because. How do you not wish for something to work that you put 16 years into? How can you not wish to not have been wrong? How can you not wish for someone to be whom you thought they were and who you still believe in? I wish it all the time.

The 'progress' comes into play in being able to remind myself that it likely will not happen.

Progress...

Sometimes I feel like I haven't made any progress since separating from my husband. That I am just as sad, angry, confused and generally heartbroken as I was 9 1/2 months ago when I moved into my own apartment. I can still go sideways when I have a few, breaking down into a heap of messy "poor me" tearfulness. I can still panic when I play out possible future scenarios in my head. When he has a baby with that new skinny, hippie girlfriend of his I'm gonna wanna cut his balls off. He wouldn't have one with me. He said it would kill him. Incensed and wrathful, I vow to make vengeful speeches and grand angry gestures inspiring, finally, his self reflection. All the while failing to recognize that this vile offense hasn't even happened yet. And may not ever (Hah.)

And then I pause for a moment and remember: it's only been 9 1/2 months. Not even a year. I love my apartment. I feel comfortable and at peace when I'm in it, either with my kids or without them. It is a space I feel at home in and I don't feel guilty that it isn't dirt cheap or falling apart. I love that I can do whatever I want to do with my kids when they are with me. Again, without guilt or eggshell tiptoeing. I can take them on adventures, big and small, without fear of a tongue lashing upon our return. I can plan vacations and not ask permission or fear emotional punishment if I choose to go even if he doesn't want to. I can drive (i.e. not take the bus) without feeling like an earth killing heathen. I don't cry very often, save those evenings when I've had one too many. I can't actually remember the last time I cried myself to sleep from anger or loneliness. I don't feel lonely even though I'm alone a lot more than I was when I was married. (I'm still married, technically, but won't be soon.)  My house is clean and orderly, the way I like it, and I don't mind being the one to clean it. It's how I left it when I head to work in the morning and I like that. It smells nice and I like that. I can buy affordable furniture and not feel like I'm making a dastardly environmental decision or depleting our bank account beyond repair.

And while I don't get many hugs from adults, and I don't get to snuggle in bed at night, and I'm not in any kind of regular cadence in regards to sexual activity, I don't feel love starved. I feel supported and cherished. By my kids, my friends, my workmates. No one tells me that I'm too competitive, or that everyone at work must hate me. No one looks at me like there is steam coming out of their ears because I ask: "What did you do today? Good day?"

I want the grown up hugs. And the spooning. And the sex. And even more than that I want the emotional and moral support from a partner. Someone to say: You can do it! I'll be here when you get home. Or...It's ok it didn't work out this time. You'll get 'em next time, tiger. Or... Come here. You look like you had a hard day.

I long to know what it is like to have that kind of support. To not be afraid to walk into a house that actually has someone in it when I get home. To have someone to make choices with, rather than convince that my preferences aren't evil. To be with someone who doesn't view having a conversation that includes questions as an interrogation.

I want someone to love. And to love me back. And recognizing that I deserve that is progress enough for me, after less than a year on my own. I suppose progress happens when you're not looking. It happens in tiny increments that add up over time. It happens in the classic tempo of two steps forward, one step back. And then, just when you're thinking I've made a dreadful mistake, you take stock. And you see the distance you've come. And you say to yourself: I AM PROGRESS.