I’m truly madly deeply in love and that love is rolling around my tongue at every moment, begging to be expressed. In fact the lovewords aren’t even asking permission: they’re leaping out of my mouth as soon as I open it.
Paradox. I’m a writer, words are my thang and so I should have stunning and heartwrenching metaphors at my disposal, but all I can think to say is this:
IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou.
And that’s how I feel about all the love, praise and support I received for in concert with fear.
To Amanda Farough of Violet Minded for making the design and typography of the chapter feel like a “stripped” and “naked” poem (just as I asked),
To my loverloverman (F) for givin’ me good lovin’, great conversation, flaming red hair and unflagging encouragement, all of which help me create,
(because of course fabulous hair is an ideal condition for creativity)
To Lola, for not crying and screaming and protesting mornings all week last week (!) and then checking in with me, daily, on the way to daycare, “I was really nice this morning, wasn’t I?”,
To Sophie, for cleaning her room unprompted (!) and, when prompted (sometimes abruptly), fetching her sister juice, granola bars, barbies and plutonium without complaint,
To Ashley Ambirge, for running my guest post (wackadoo title and all) for her Fear Exposed series and loving me up so thoroughly I almost required nicotine,
Using only my wits, a manual transmission and a steering wheel, I can maneuver a thousand pounds of metal in and out of spaces so small they should require a can opener.
And I can do it consistently. With crowds of people watching and cheering. With the guy I want (always) to impress (always) in the car.
True story.
We were going to breakfast at my favourite joint in Fort Langley - ohhhh, the evil omelettes, ohhhhh the wicked weekend line-ups – and parking in that ‘hood is almost always a challenge. But lo! there was a spot. A very tiny spot, and a very long line of traffic behind me.
I lined up my passenger door with the driver door of the car ahead of my spot, backed in until the curb was in the middle of my rear view mirror, continued reversing while rolling the steering wheel the other way…and I was in, and tight to the curb too.
It was spectacular. I was spectacular.
And my newish man smiled at me and said Wow.
That was seven months ago and I don’t remember if we had sex that morning (of course we did), and it’s probably inappropriate to say if we had sex this morning (of course we did!), but let’s assume this driving lesson does indeed instruct.
The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie — deliberate, contrived and dishonest — but the myth — persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. – John F. Kennedy
A successful marriage is basically an endless cycle of wrongs committed, apologies offered, and forgiveness granted…all leavened by the occasional orgasm. – Dan Savage
Marriage is not a game for the young… Maturity brings—among other things—the ability to sustain and survive enormous contradictions and disappointments. Marriage is—among other things—a study in contradiction and disappointment, and inside that reality there is space for us to truly learn how to love. -Elizabeth Gilbert
___________________________
Here are the things I hear through the shared wall of my townhouse:
My neighbours got a Wii Fit for Christmas and it sounds like this: thump thump thump thump thump + some sort of repetitive musical refrain. Rinse. Repeat. For hours. I sincerely hope someone is getting skinny.
My neighbours have spent a little too much time together this week, and they’re both over it. Loudly.
They’re not alone.
January and Divorce and Break-ups, Generally
Today – and every day this month – is momentous and shattering. Today is the day when people return to work, after a week or so of holidaying at home with their families, and file for divorce.
Really.
Google tells me it is common, and if Google says so, you know it is true.
Article after article names January 7, 8 and 12, or just January in general, as the busiest month of the year for divorce lawyers (and long-suffering couples).
In preparation, and in the spirit of Christmas generosity, a law firm in the UK offered discounted “divorce gift certificates” in December.
It makes awful sense to me. Who breaks up right before Christmas? You grit your teeth and you get through it. And then you make a New Year’s resolution, escape to the office a few days later, and make the call.
That’s bald and clinical and unsympathetic. But when I put my heart in it, I think, a lot of us are hurting right now.
So, if this is you, peace be with you. My heart aches for you. Hang in there, my friend.
If this is maybe you - but you’re not really sure of much except that things aren’t what you expected and your wolf isn’t being fedand the scary hairy one has an empty stomach – here’s a little white hot truth from Joseph Campbell by way of Danielle LaPorte:
Marriage is not a love affair,
it’s an ordeal.
It is a religious exercise, a sacrament,
the grace of participating in another life.
If you go into marriage with a program,
you will find that it won’t work.
Successful marriage
is leading innovative lives together,
being open, non-programmed.
It’s a free fall: how you handle each new thing as it comes along.
As a drop of oil on the sea,
you must float,
using intellect and compassion
to ride the waves.
Divorce and Break-ups, Specifically (and Personally)
This is my first year of being single since pretty much ever.
(Stealing a great line from Ms. Robinson, woman of experience, here: I’m single, though not all the time.)
So I know. I really know. I’m not in the midst of it, now, but I didn’t get to be a much-vaunted single mama without a catastrophic heart-home-love-and-life smash up.
I was with someone for seven years even though I knew the truth. I knew we weren’t It or Meant To Be, always.
But nothing was wrong. He was (is) a good person and good to me. And so, next step and next step and next step.
I told myself that the things I was looking for, and lacking, I could find other places.
I think, generally, this is a wise strategy, because no one person can be everything to you. You have friends and careers and kids and knitting and online pornography for a reason.
But we couldn’t talk to each other. Yes, we spoke different languages (his five to my one-and-a-half, franglais is sort of a language, right?) but we really spoke different languages.
If I asked him a question that required a yes or a no, he would tell me stories freighted with cultural allusions and fraught with entendres and shadows.
And then I would say/scream, what the *bad word* ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? CAN YOU PICK UP THE MILK OR NOT?
Talking. We talked past each other. Like a kitten with a newly dead mouse, I would bring him my ideas and in the interests of getting me to think harder, better, higher, he’d tell me I needed a rat. He’d advocate the devil to purify my psalms.
Frustrated by the missed connections and fraying vocal cords, I would yell at him which would take him to a terrifying place: in another country, in another world, he was tortured.
My screams – at him – haunt me, still.
In short: we wanted the same things in life (family, children) but not from each other, because we couldn’t know each other. Our words whizzed past each other and whacked into the wall.
So I knew for a long time – always – but I knew, intensely, unrelentingly, in the itchy, painful, transformative, horrific, something’s-gotta-give way, for two years before it gave way.
Eventually you get tired of running and let your monsters catch you. It is pretty much the nightmare you imagined, more so and less so, and you survive.
What I Maybe Know About Love and Loss and What You Probably Do, Too
So I’ve loved and lost and tried again and here’s what I think I know about loving hard, holding on and letting go.
We are all, fundamentally, mysteries to each other. Sometimes we are mysteries to ourselves.
But, I believe, we want to be known. To speak the same language as our loved ones. To be heard. Understood.
It doesn’t matter what The Problem or nest of interrelated, tangled up problems is or are or how trivial it will appear to outside eyes. It doesn’t matter if it is communication incompatibility or sexual incompatibility -
and this is NOT trivial. Dan Savage gets it right when he says this:
in a long-term relationship—or a marriage—one partner’s sexual selfishness and another’s sexual frustration rarely prove trivial over the long haul. They’re more often grounds for divorce.
- or just plain growing in different directions.
The truth is a beast. Ugly. Big teeth. Relentless. Patient (sometimes). Hungry. It will be fed. Sometime.
If you know, you know.
And all the reasons in the world that are stalling your exit – kids, family, property, social expectations – are just that: stalls.
The biggest stall is the dream. The myth. The internal myth making and myth busting that comes with a marriage bust-up is more dangerous and damaging than anything inflicted on you from the outside.
Myth breaking:
fairy tales and happily ever after and us, always
The One
Myth making:
I can’t commit to anything
I quit again
I failed again
this is all my fault
I should be stronger. I should just buck up and grit my teeth and get through it
I will never find another
I will die alone with cats because that’s what the unlovable/unfuckable do
my children will be juvenile delinquents
I will never have children
All those “again”s. They indicate personal narratives and toxic loops you’re knitting yourself into.
Sometimes we enslave ourselves to our stories.
So tell yourself a new story. Tell yourself the truth. Start with this:
If you know, you know.
If you don’t know, wait until you get to the knowing. More heavy lifting, hard works, stillness and listening.
So these are the things I know about relationships:
Hold on.
Or don’t.
Be the truth. You already know what it is or how to get to where it is.
There is no later.
Wait, that’s not entirely true. That’s not the entire list.
There’s one more thing: stay true, my friend. Think, cry, grieve, eat, pray, love (again) and know there will be light (again).
___________________
PS – this is a repost from last year. January 4th is January 4th is January 4th…
PPS – thanks to my new friend Catherine for the conversation that inspired me to add these two videos.
PPPS – just so you know, I like it when you follow me on Twitter. I’m @KellyDiels.
You know, sometimes – lots of times – maybe even most of the time – you won’t get your needs met.
(I’m saying you but I mean I.)
It’s weird how we structure romantic relationships as transactions. You’d think that when someone takes up residence in our hearts, we’d let them settle in. Stay. Take on that mortgage.
(Mort, in French, means death. Gage means pledge. Romantic, if you take the long view.)
Instead, they’re squatting. We’re looking for reasons to kick them out.
Girlfriends give the worst love advice. Best practices fall from their lips and their love for us makes them intolerant. He’s hurting you, he’s screwing up, he’s gotta go. No matter the obstacles that she and her husband/wife/lover have themselves overcome or that overcoming obstacles – most of them internal – is how we love.
Most of us quit when we run into obstacles. As a culture, we’re not hurdlers.
I’ve written before – and it’s too terse and cogent to be mine so I’m sure I’ve stolen it from someone, my apologies – that the essential injustice in relationships is that it takes two people to get into one but only one to get out.
That’s why death pledges - ’til death us do part – are so rare. We’re looking for gratification, mostly instant, in our relationships. When things aren’t gratifying, when they’re boring or hard or even hurtful, we give up.
I gave up a lot this year.
I often do that.
And the last three months have been drama. Trauma. Drama and trauma and not all of it rooted in relationship woes but a huge chunk of it was.
And I didn’t do what I usually do. I didn’t give up. I didn’t ask for advice and I didn’t follow the rules or best practices. I went all out and all in.
I didn’t give up.
Well, I did a couple of times.
I chose someone else over him. He said, I love you. I know you’ll come back.
I came back.
And then he wasn’t giving me what I wanted – something important, that he should have done – and on the phone, I said I’d had it. I said I can’t do this anymore. I said, Call me when you’re ready to be my partner. I said, Good-bye.
And I was right. He was deeply mothafuckin’ wrong. We both knew it. Anybody to whom I would have told the story would have agreed. Applauded me. Brought wine and ice cream.
But when I got off the phone, I thought, What do I want?
I want us.
Nomaddawhat.
I dug in. I leapt that hurdle. I trusted myself. I told him “I can’t do this” but I thought I can do this.
I can get through this bullshit. I can endure. I can settle so hard into my shoes that I feel the earth or the stage – whatever occasion and opportunity presents – through my five-inch heels.
I can do this. I will do this. I will fight. I will not give up.
Because, for the most part, the things in life I regret are not the things I’ve done.
I regret the things I haven’t done: when I didn’t defend someone, when I didn’t say what I really thought, when I played it safe and gave up, when I walked away without knowing that I tried everything.
And so this time, I thought, no regrets. I will not be the one who gives up. I will not give up on us before I’ve even started to try.
Nomaddawhat.
And so I got off the phone, even though I was right, and got into my car and drove to his house, which was probably wrong.
He answered the door with blanket wrapped around him. He looked like someone had been beating him for days. Someone had. He didn’t smile at me. I didn’t smile at him. He extended one arm to me with his green comforter draping off it like the cape of a superhero. I walked into his arms and we took that comforter to bed. We talked. Cried. Kissed. Talked. Cried. He sighed and said, Why is this fucking bitch so fucking persistent?
I have written many scholarly, feminist papers on the politics of Harlequin Romance, Masculinity in Dance Films and trust me, you’d love my analysis of Dirty Dancing.
And I didn’t write any of those essays to bash the genre. I used to sneak romance novels from my mother’s secret stash (under the bed) and add them to mine (under the bed). I learned to read fast and swallow a book in a single sitting.
I love love stories.
And yet I’m a feminist…and I was part of the third-wave generation who attempted to reconcile (among other things) the tension between our love of pop culture and some of the misogynist social messages reified by pop culture.
(Check it: reified. It’s been at least ten years since I used that word. Big up to honours Poli Sci!)
All of this means that I wrote papers about the things I was passionate about, mostly because I wanted to find some redeeming political messages in them. I wanted Official Feminist Permission to keep loving love stories and all things seemingly feminine and frivolous.
(Which brings to mind my favourite line from Vanessa Hidary’s appropriately-profranity-drenched poem Fling Gone Awry. Please tell me if you can guess which line I love – and live – best.)
Admittedly, this is a roundabout way of saying that in addition to mainlining it, I also study this stuff. Romance. Stories. There are formulas.
Here’s one:
Exceptionalism.
Almost every romance novel or movie puts an unlikely couple together, or puts a likely couple in trying circumstances that would undoubtedly doom most lovers…
But our lovers aren’t just any lovers. They’re in it to win it. They’re gonna make it.
Teachers train writers in this sort of thing and the resulting stories train readers in exceptionalism. Inadvertently, incidentally or by explicit patriarchal design, these narratives teach us – women, mostly – to believe that even real life love works like that.
And maybe it does.
Think about it: before you met your lover, your husband, your wife, your mate, your lobster, he or she failed at every single relationship attempted. So did you.
And yet you still believed that the two of you would be the exception to that history of failed love.
Or maybe you started in unlikely circumstances: you met in a bar, drunk, and had a one-night stand. (I know several marriages that started like this.) You dated his friend (I’m talking to the mirror, here). There’s an age difference. There’s a culture difference. You don’t speak the same language or even live in the same city. You were nineteen and knocked up. You broke up three times before you even started going out (ask me how I know this tautological and seemingly impossible arrangement is indeed possible). You started out as a booty call and fell in love.
Your friends, family, psychologist, preacher, therapist, garage mechanic and hair stylist, not to mention Helen Fischer and your faithful blog audience, will counsel/rant against these kinds of romances. And so they should. Logically and statistically speaking this kind of love is a bad idea, pumpkin.
You will cry. We all know that. And it probably won’t work. Most don’t.
But the reason we continue on – besides the heady mix of lovelovelove chemicals a-partying in your head, your heart and your *ahem* – is because we believe, know, hope, and pray that we are the exception. At last. Finally. Forever.
Procrastination isn’t hell. It is purgatory. It is waiting for something to happen and half-hoping nothing does. It is the absence of choice and agency. It is letting things happen to you because you refuse to choose.
Because to choose is both to embrace and foreclose possibility.
When you say yes to any beautiful choice, any sumptuous option, any delectable course of action, you’re saying no to a buffet of equally delicious opportunities.
My sister once told me this was my curse: “Your problem is that you’re good at everything so you can’t commit to anything.”
And, that Dearest Reader, is a recipe for never doing anything at all.
Talent, like love, is a blessing but only if you commit to it, cultivate it, share it.
And this is why productivity gurus, coaches and wise women (always listen to the last one more than the others unless they’re one and the same) lecture us on learning the value of no.
It isn’t merely about ending schedule-creep and busy-ness.
It is far more signficant than that: saying no is about saying yes and saying yes means saying no.
It is about cutting and commitment. Deciding. Choosing and re-choosing your yes every day.
It is about deciding – cutting – hacking – your own path to the Mountain.
And it’s why making a commitment is so damn hard. Because saying yes to something means saying no to almost everything else. Because sometimes life is a surgical decision. You cut to live.
When my youngest daughter was eight months old, I moved back to the small(ish) suburban community I grew up in. I left it when I was eighteen, to live in Victoria, Vancouver, Hsin-Chu (Taiwan), Vancouver, and then Burnaby. Moving back to the suburbs felt like a capitulation but it was a sanity-saver. Suddenly, I lived thirty seconds (walking!) from my sister, and was immersed in a community of young stay-at-home moms. Suddenly, I wasn’t alone.
Community can save your life. But it can be a pain in the ass, too.
Julie [my sister] via BBM, after our cars passed on the street in front of our kids’ school: Who’s the cool dude crammed into the front of your red hawt neon?
He’s an executive. His house is paid for, as are the university educations of his kids.
His wife won’t fuck him. Hasn’t for years. She was “never much interested in sex”.
They had a talk when their son was around thirteen. Should they divorce?
No, they shouldn’t. A boy becoming a man needs a man in the home. They both like their house, the neighbourhood, their neighbours, their friends. And they don’t mind each other.
And so, an agreement.
2008
How are you?
Fine.
How’s work?
Busy as hell. I’m out of town two days a week. This year I’ve made twenty-two trips and it’s only June.
Hey, what’s up with you? How was your weekend?
Great – went to the States and did some shopping with The Wife and The Boy.
I called you this morning, looking for a lunch partner. Couldn’t get a’hold of you. What’d you do for lunch today?
Wendy.
What’s on your plate right now? That project wrapped up, does that mean things have slowed down for you at all?
I’m still out of town every other week. Forty business trips in fifty weeks. It gets old. I hate hotel rooms. But I love my job.
What’s new with you? What are you doing on Friday? Wanna have coffee?
Can’t. I’m having lunch and fucking Jaye.
How was your weekend?
Great! Just got home from Seattle. Did some shopping with my wife. I bought a beautiful pinstriped suit. Nice treat. I deserved it. Been travelling all year. I’m away at least two days a week.
Got time for coffee?
Yes…
…How are things between you and your wife?
The same. I’m thinking about leaving. We’ve been talking about it.
I’m shocked. I thought you liked your life just as it is: nice house, nice wife, lots of nice women on the side…
This was never the plan. I was faithful for ten years and I could have been faithful forever. Fucking around gets old. I’d like to have one woman, a condo downtown, modern furniture, a view…she’d be my age, her kids would be grown, we’d do some travelling together, enjoy life.
I thought you loved your life. Having your cake and all that…
I do love my life. I have a great life.
How are things? Are you seeing anyone?
Mostly Jaye, on Fridays and some Thursdays. But I have a date with the lovely Tracey this weekend.
6 people have
