The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The new Boeing 787 Dreamliner can carry about 250 passengers. This blog was viewed about 970 times in 2012. If it were a Dreamliner, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people.
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A friend asked me MONTHS ago for my opinion of Steve Harvey’s Act Like A Lady; Think Like A Man. This friend had taken her husband to see the movie version on one of their date nights and for some reason couldn’t wait “to ask you what you thought about it because I knew you would have a strong opinion.”
I had to disappoint my friend. For 37 years, I have managed to never seek the advice of any of the litany of self-help dating books that make up what has to be a trillion dollar arm of the publishing industry. And when Mr. Harvey’s highly successful book turned into a highly successful movie, my desire to see it – for its sage guidance or light entertainment – never arrived. I held no strong opposition to neither the book and subsequent movie nor Steve Harvey’s bizarre promotion from a moderately funny comic to the single woman’s yoda. When Harvey was doing his rounds on Oprah, however, I do distinctly recall being irritated by him. I could not explain why, but I was certain that my irritation cut much deeper than Steve’s seemingly sincere attempt to let women into the inner workings of the male mind, particularly the mind of the “marriage-ready” male.
I never read the book; I never saw the movie. I never could explain why I was irritated by both, though, until last week.
I read an article in the August issue of Vogue that dug into a much-neglected angle of what should be a moot issue at this point in our species’ evolution: a woman’s right to choose. What made Pamela Paul’s angle unique was that she did not write an article about abortion. It was not even an article about birth control options. It was an article about women in the prime of their child bearing years CHOOSING to get tubal ligations because they had known since they were adolescents that they did not want children and preferred the guarantee of a child-free life that tied tubes promised.
The women’s doctors soothingly suggested they just stay on the pill since they would probably change their minds later in life. Some physicians even said they would “consider” performing the procedure if the women’s husbands would come in to verify they both had agreed on what she would and would not do with her uterus. Several doctors spoke wistfully of the joy they found in their own children, ending with the caveat: “What if you meet someone you REALLY love and then you can’t have his child?” Doctors even offered this cautionary tale to married women who could not find the words to counter this unintended accusation that they did not really love their husbands if they were unwilling to have children.
Paul was fair and diplomatic. She wrote about a doctor’s responsibility to withhold a medical procedure if she felt it were not in the best interest of a patient. And what ethical gynecologist would dole out a tubal ligation with the same indifferent ease as she would scribble out a prescription for the pill? However, there was something about the somewhat extreme “convincing” that these women had to do in order to get their doctors to perform this procedure that irritated me as much as Steve Harvey’s segments on Oprah.
What if you really DO want children?
What if you regret this decision you’ve been asked to justify since as long as you can remember?
What if you act your ass off like a lady and think constantly like a man, but…no man ever puts a ring on it?
What if you sleep with that nice, cute guy before the three month grace period and all he’s willing to give you is a courtship of kindness, warmth and some pleasant memories? What if you give him SIX of your best childbearing months and he STILL wants to offer you only this?
While these questions appear benign on the surface, at a deeper level they reveal a potentially harmful narrative that is subtlety sold to women. This narrative reads: in order for a person (particularly, a person who possesses a uterus) to be authentically happy, several external factors have to occur. The narrative suggests that while child-free women can enjoy their current life, they will experience a deep unhappiness later in life because of the absence of this child that would have absolutely brought them joy. See, it is not the woman herself who determines her happiness; it is this action. It is the act of giving birth and raising a child from which true joy comes. This is why the doctors in the Vogue article were reticent to play a role in permanently blocking this source of ultimate female joy. What if their patients did regret their decision? How could these women possibly experience sincere, deep-from-the-belly joy while living with the absence of this child that never was?
As part of the external-factor-determining-happiness narrative is the thesis that asserts: happiness will likely bestow itself on you once you have mastered the maintenance of a loving relationship with the right partner. Beneath those doctors’ requests that their married patients bring in their husbands to sign off on the tubal ligation was the notion that if he does agree with this NOW but changes his mind LATER, he might be forced to leave you. And much like the absence of the child that never was, how could these women truly claim deep-from-the-belly joy when having to say goodbye to wonderful husbands with whom they had cultivated healthy relationships? This narrative is most implicit in Steve Harvey’s well meaning campaign catering to the fear planted in women that to never be invited into the exclusive club of wifehood is to be sentenced to a life of disgrace, forced to roam the earth with a gigantic red “S” emblazoned across your chest. Harvey merely repackages what society has sold to his readers for generations. When dealing with the requisite sufferings and pleasures of adult life, happiness is expedited if someone provides you with a road map pointed concisely in the direction of acquiring the ideal romantic partner. Because once you have the ideal romantic partner, you will be in the ideal position to birth the ultimate female joy.
Again, I hold no ill will against Steve Harvey. And I understand why a reputable doctor would be apprehensive about performing such a permanent procedure on a woman who she feels has not lived long enough to fully grasp the finality of her decision. My only question is: What if we sold women a new narrative? One which claimed they, and they alone, were the source of their happiness. That through consistent effort, they could cultivate a happiness that was not as transient as we now have them believe. That such deep-from-the-belly joy could be sustained through the entrance of a bad lover and the exit of a good one. Since they are the ones who already possess it, this joy could even survive the realization that they had made the wrong choice years earlier in their doctor’s office.
This is the power of joy that is internal; it is ever-present and can even co-exist with sadness, regret and disappointment. If women believed this new narrative, they just might begin to evaluate the success of a romantic relationship on how much it contributed to or detracted from their pre-existing happiness as opposed to whether it was progressing fast enough to marriage. This new narrative can even incorporate vestiges of the old. Maybe women would respond better to the notion that happiness has to be attached to SOMETHING external. After all, strictly self-focused happiness can easily give birth to selfishness and isolation. Instead of the time-sensitive and often anxiety-ridden quest to pregnancy, what if we actually told women that their happiness is based significantly on identifying and working toward their true purpose in life? The reason for which they chose to be born into this world, at this time, under their particular circumstances? What if we led them to believe this purpose does not necessarily begin or end with motherhood?
What if someone convinced women we are infinitely powerful beings who are worthy and capable of sustainable joy? What if THIS was where the new narrative began and ended?
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1.
After three months of dating Bernard, he sent me a tentative text message. Although I have spent the last three years bemoaning the emotional ambivalence of people who send text messages to initiate serious conversations, Bernard’s text was completely clear; it left no room for misunderstanding.
I have been doing a lot of thinking about us. Our journey. Can we talk tonight?
Sitting in Starbucks trying to get some work done, I looked knowingly at Bernard’s text. I am 35 years old, I thought. A calm, yet ominous reality washed over me as I gathered the remaining papers I was grading and reached for my purse. I knew. Once I called Bernard, I would be having the same conversation with him as the one I’d had with Daniel almost eight years earlier.
2.
Meredith is one of the most vibrant, energetic older women I have ever met. She works full time in a job she adores, never seriously considering what most women her age dream about almost daily: RETIREMENT. Recurring days with no where to go and nothing to do. Meredith loathes the thought of this “reward” given to Americans who spend their youth productively contributing to society.
30 years ago when Meredith was my age, she was married with three children. It was not a happy marriage; she was a wife and mother because all of her friends were wives and mothers. She was an ordinary girlchild with an average education who did what was expected of her and married the first young man who she seriously dated. He had a college education and thus the earning potential to take care of Meredith and the inevitable army of kids she would birth.
“I never thought about having kids. About what it would mean for me. About how much time and dedication it would take,” Meredith explained to me. “I wasn’t surprised by the difficulty and the level of sacrifice motherhood involved,” Meredith was quick to add. “I just never thought about it or considered whether or not I wanted to take on the responsibility. It’s just what I assumed I’d eventually do because…well, everybody assumed it was what all the girls would eventually do.”
3.
Nothing about Bernard’s hesitant “let’s be friends” monologue surprised me. Somewhere around our third date, it became clear to me that Bernard was ready for fatherhood. And since he was a man of stellar character, fatherhood would come after he had fallen in love with the right woman and married her. Somewhere in between our third date and this current conversation, it had become clear to Bernard not only was I not ready for motherhood, I was rather disinterested in it.
“I knew it was not smart to keep seeing you when we wanted two different things, but I really liked you and…I don’t know…I guess I thought this gap in what we saw for our futures would just magically disappear.”
There was no need to explain. Bernard was 39 years old and didn’t want to be a 50 year old waking up in the middle of the night to change a diaper. It made no sense for him to become more emotionally attached to a woman whose vision of her lifestyle now and ten years in the future just made no sense when a baby was inserted in the picture.
“I respect your decision, which is why I never openly asked you about it when you made comments that suggested you didn’t want to have children.” As Bernard awkwardly tried to find a way to end this unpleasant conversation, I was acutely aware of how much this conversation differed from the one I’d had with Daniel some years ago.
Unlike Daniel, Bernard was, at the very core, my ideal mate. He was intellectually, spiritually and socially the person who I am working relentlessly to become. If I can have this conversation with him and still not question whether or not I REALLY don’t want kids, well…could it be that this really is a decision that is solid. I was 28 when I had to explain to Daniel that I didn’t really see myself as a mother. Like many people suggested to me, I wondered if perhaps it was just him. I didn’t love him enough. I just didn’t see him as someone who would play an equal role in parenting. But here I am, at a point in my life where I crave a partner and a life spent tending to someone other than myself, and my reaction to the notion of pregnancy and caring for an infant remains the same: a clear and certain NO.
When I finally save Bernard from his ill attempts to terminate our phone conversation, I sit on my sofa feeling two emotions. Sadness at the loss of what my relationship with Bernard could have been. And RELIEF. I literally exhale, thankful that I have been given an opportunity to truly have my value tested. When a man with whom I was falling in love admitted that he could not see me as an option, it never occurred to me to think about “fixing” the problem that disqualified me from the race to be his mate.
4.
“This generation is a lot more focused on knowledge,” Meredith points out. “You guys seem to be more aware that big life decisions should be made after gathering information. You actually do make INFORMED decisions.” Meredith maintains that I am not the only woman she knows who does not want to have children. Her daughter is childless by choice. A niece even younger than myself has pushed back her attempts to “get pregnant” every year since she and her husband started vaguely planning to have a family. As Meredith lists the young women she knows who are making informed decisions, I suddenly realize why I wanted to talk to her shortly after my conversation with Bernard.
I have been given a privilege that women from Meredith’s generation were denied. By simply coming into my womanhood at the end of the 20th century, I was causally handed what I have never quite understood until now was a right that my mother’s generation was dismissively denied and what my contemporaries and I routinely take for granted.
I am not only repeatedly put into situations where I must make ENORMOUS adult decisions based on my own values, but the world EXPECTS me to do so. To choose the life that is the best fit for me. I dictate my professional life and my personal one as well.
I have spent over a decade deciding if a particular man was worth my trust and love. Or even another date. If his personality and dreams and values were properly matched to mine. I have had the added privilege of choosing to prioritize the aforementioned traits over the characteristics on which women are often encouraged to place the highest value: is he gainfully employed and does he treat me kind of nice? When I said yes or no to these relationships for any number of reasons, there was a world that was able to accommodate me regardless of the outcome of my decision. I had the privilege of agonizing over whether I had made the right choice when I said yes or no. I was fortunate enough to even worry about regret slowly seeping into my bed during late nights when I slept without a Bernard or a Daniel. To question if I had made the unfortunate mistake of letting a good man go. Should I have just married (insert the name of any good man here) and had his baby?
I made these informed decisions and dealt with their consequences, holding no one responsible for their repercussions but the woman who had made them.
I have won what Meredith’s generation never even realized they were not offered: a womanhood that was synonymous with adulthood. For some reason, the womanhood Meredith describes when she was my age sounds much like the lives of my teenaged students. Lives where they have illusions of choice, but at the end of the day, they follow the dictates placed on them by a host of “others.” You don’t really choose to do your homework; if you don’t do the homework, your parents take away your cell phone. You don’t really choose to mutter quietly under your breath about how stupid the homework assignment is; if you actually said outloud – for EVERYBODY to hear – that the assignment is asinine…well, this teacher lady makes you pay for the comment.
It is not just childless-by-choice women who have benefitted from the expectation that we fair creatures should consciously choose to mother or not to mother. It is also women who choose to delay childbirth until THEY feel they are emotionally and financially ready to handle the commitment. It is also married women who matter of factly say to their husbands: “We’re stopping after just this one.” These women have essentially gone through the same data-gathering process that I have and have made an informed decision. One based on not simply emotion, but also the realities of their lives. They have brought life into this world on their own terms.
After my recent conversations with Bernard and Meredith, I find myself deeply appreciative to the universe for this radical expectation that I and I alone should dictate the parameters of my life and stand behind those dictates without flinching.
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Recently, a student came to me in tears. Two years prior to Bev’s teary conversation with me, she had engaged in a teary conversation with her mother. An honorable 13 year old, Bev sought to be open and honest with her mother. “I like girls,” she’d admitted timidly. Her mother dismissed her feelings, repeatedly reminding Bev that she was not raised to like girls. Naturally, Bev had little incentive to talk to her mother again about these incorrect feelings she was not raised to feel. As a matter of fact, the conversation would not have come up again if a now 15 year old Bev had not been caught in what her mother called “a lie.” The girl that her mother preferred to believe was not Bev’s first love, but just her really good friend came out to her mother, revealing that she was dating Bev.
Both mothers have spent months trying to “punish” these feelings out of their daughters. When her mother has discovered that Bev has still found ways to communicate with her girlfriend, Bev has had video games and computer privileges taken away from her. She has been forbidden to go anywhere but straight home after school so as to minimize the chances of her spending time with her girlfriend. Bev was crying in my classroom because she did not think it was fair (or even logical) that her mother could punish her for something over which she had no control in the same manner she had once punished her older sister when she cut class in high school or was caught smoking weed with the neighborhood losers.
“I know my mom loves me,” Bev agreed after I reminded her that her mother wouldn’t be taking such extreme measures if she didn’t fiercely care about her daughter. “But, what does she expect me to do? When she tells me to stop seeing my girlfriend, I never say I will because I know I’m going to keep seeing her. And liking girls. What she wants from me…well, I just can’t give it to her.” As teachers often do, I bit down on my tongue and compassionately listened to Bev, telling her that I was sorry she was in such pain. I valiantly fought not to voice my own disbelief and sadness that her mother unjustly placed this bizarrely level-headed, thoughtful and well behaved teenager on the frontlines of a battle she was destined to lose. “Do not lie to me,” her mother repeatedly demands. But, to tell her mother “the truth” she wants to hear, Bev would have to tell her mother and her herself one gigantic, soul-stealing lie. And then, until she is old enough to move out of her mother’s house, Bev would have to act out the lie that her mother has pretty much required her to live.
And all because Bev has decided to love. Openly.
There are many things that baffle me, but none have floored me as much as my conversation with Bev. I am amazed that Bev’s mother has decided that either her daughter is able to simply shut off the feelings she has felt since she was in middle school like a bedside lamp or if she can’t, that she should properly respect her mother’s house by not acting on those feelings or acknowledging them openly enough to remind her mother that they are still there. “I know it’s hard for you to be you, but it’s harder for me to ACCEPT you so could you work harder at not being you, please?” How can someone who loves you so casually and cruelly take away your dignity like that?
Apparently, to be repeatedly robbed of your dignity is common place for people like Bev who have the audacity to be who they are and love who they love with no apologies.
According to my friend, Janine, she obeyed her parents’ silent orders to not be who she was well into her 20s. She brought her girlfriend home many times, careful not to touch her arm too tenderly or brush away a lose strand of hair from her face and then smile sweetly at her. “They thought we were just friends for years,” she told me. Janine, who was a 25 year old college-educated, productive member of society, thought it easier to save these tender displays of affection common among lovers for moments when no one was looking. Basically, Janine regressed back to being a teenager whenever she went home. She “snuck off” to kiss her girlfriend or hug her in a manner not congruent with platonic friendship.
Now that she is 30 and her parents are well aware that the friend who visited with their daughter all those years ago was her live in lover, they still require her to lie to them. Janine and her ex-girlfriend were together for almost a decade, but never spent a holiday together in either of their parents’ homes. Janine went to her family for a few days and her girlfriend to her family. Both families avoided talking about the mate with whom their daughter/sister/niece/cousin had created an honest, productive, mutually loving life. While sisters showed off engagement rings and younger cousins awkwardly tried to incorporate first boyfriends into the family routines, Janine ate potato salad. Across the country, her girlfriend did the same thing.
Oddly enough, no one in Janine’s family showed any hint of discomfort about their family member quietly cutting off a part of her life just to be a part of their’s.
Recently, Janine has made it clear to her parents that there will come a point when this lying will have to cease. Not solely because getting jacked for your dignity gets exhausting after a while, but it simply is impractical.
“I plan on getting married one day,” she told her father. “I plan on having children. When that happens, it would be crazy to expect me to leave my wife in New York City while I take my kid to you and Mama’s house to spend Christmas with my family. So, eventually, I won’t be coming home.”
Her father asked if she were threatening him. He implied that she was black mailing him, trying to force him to accept a life style he believed to be wrong by refusing to come home.
When Janine shared this disturbing exchange with me, she also mentioned how her parents routinely dismissed she and her ex’s relationship. From never asking how her girlfriend was doing to not taking Janine’s plans to travel with her partner as a “good enough” reason to miss a family function, her parents made it clear that they questioned the validity of her love. As I listened to Janine relay how her father felt so comfortable adding guilt to the shame and dismissiveness her parents had placed on her over the years, I actually questioned the validity of her parents’ love for her. I was not questioning whether or not they loved her, however. What I questioned was the purity of that love. The depth of it.
How does Love look you square in the face and repeatedly demand that you sacrifice who you are because it believes who you are is not acceptable? Who you are makes it uncomfortable so it then further asks you to bend the truth a little when you are in its presence? Live a benign version of a “double life.” How can love make these types of requests of you when “who you are” is simply a person who chooses to love? Isn’t that all Janine and Bev are doing?
As I listened to Janine share her story, I found myself having the same internal conflict as I had while listening to Bev tearfully share her own turmoil about trying to be a good daughter while staying true to who she was. I did not want to demonize Janine’s parents, either, and judge them because their belief system differed from mine. But, I really could not wrap my brain around both sets of parents’ preference to have their daughters lie to them and pretend they were something they were not.
When you punish your teenaged daughter for refusing to stop loving another girl, no matter how you justify it, you are asking her to be silent and allow you to believe that she has managed to heterosexualize herself. This is a lie. When you repeatedly sit across from your adult daughter at Christmas dinner and talk about her job, her latest travels, her new apartment, never mentioning the woman to whom she vents about her job, with whom she shares those trips to Europe and the home they both come back to…well, you are instructing your daughter to play act when she is in your presence. To pretend she is a single gal in the city when she obviously is not. This is a lie.
While I am by no means an expert on love, I do know one thing with absolute certainty. LOVE DOES NOT LIE. It doesn’t ask you to do so, either.
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Several years ago, Oprah gave me some sound advice. Her show on that day was built loosely around the much-loved topic: How Single Women Can Get the Man They Really Want. There was the requisite audience of fabulous women in their 30s and 40s lamenting on how they had EVERYTHING – jobs that brought them financial stability AND personal fulfillment, fun and exciting extracurricular activities, supportive families who were happiest when they were happy and even semi-regular romantic lives. There was, also, the requisite “expert,” who, to her credit, spoke firmly about women shifting their man-hunting focus to what really matters in a mate as opposed to the endless checklist of “resume-appropriate” attributes that we often run down when we are evaluating whether a handsome date will graduate to a fulltime mate.
Oprah encouraged her audience to create a detailed list of every quality they wanted in a man. The sensible expert gave very specific instructions for this list. “You are not wasting ink on his income, hobbies and whether or not he likes poetry,” she chided. She urged the attentive single gals to dig deeper. To think hard about what characteristics were encoded into the very core of their ideal man. Qualities that were so central to a person’s way of “being” that a woman would not even really see these qualities until she was well into the relationship. Both Oprah and her expert then instructed the audience to put the list away and not to worry about it again. They warned against pulling it out every time you were excited about a new gentleman caller and comparing the few shallow details of his life you were able to figure out after two dates with the list of your mate’s core characteristics.
Like any good American, I did as President O instructed; I made my list.
In the years since that show aired, I don’t remember what became of my list. I do remember what a great time I had compiling it, proud of myself for finding it ridiculously easy to dig beneath the surface and get to the core of what I sought in my Mr. Right. High on my list were honesty and openness. A series of unfortunate events over the years has now caused me to question these two attributes that every woman on the planet claims to seek in a man. Oddly enough, my questions have nothing to do with this ideal man (who I have yet to meet, by the way). My questions are directed at me. I am wondering if I can honestly claim that I am…well, honest. And open.
One painful, complicated relationship and one dead-upon-arrival courtship later, I have come to realize: I lie. A lot. It is difficult for me to identify just how often I lie because I lie in the sneaky, sophisticated way in which many women excel. I do not speak untruths to gentlemen callers. I just don’t speak at all.
During the dead-upon-arrival courtship, there were several times when I felt uncertain of his interest level in our budding relationship. Instead of voicing this discomfort when I felt it, I simply said nothing. By the time I got around to saying something, I admitted to the easiest emotion: severe annoyance. My voice registered a tone with which it has the most experience: blunt pseudo-honesty. I asked the gentleman caller: “Is it your intent to send the message that you are no longer interested and I should back off?” I allowed myself credit for not beating around the bush when I asked him this question, conveniently overlooking how this version of honesty was tainted with deceit’s classier cousin: silence. I said I was irritated. I didn’t say I was frightened. I pointed to the week that had passed since we had seen each other or had a conversation that lasted more than five minutes. I did not admit I noticed the exact number of days since he had disappeared because I missed him, which meant I liked him. I left all of this out because the rule of casual dishonesty dictates: Stick to the surface. Stay there.
Shockingly, when you are not honest with a gentleman caller, it makes it that more difficult to be open with him. Weeks before I shared only about 45.5% of my truth with him, the gentleman caller had made a telling observation about me. “I tell a story about some part of my life and I wait for you to share something about you,” he explained. “Either you offer nothing or when you start talking, it’s like you are being very careful in what you share. You shut down. Edit yourself all the time.”
Really?
Perhaps that could have been what the gentleman caller who had starred in the painful, complicated relationship was eluding to when he challenged: “Remember that time when you broke up with me? When you abruptly kicked me out of your apartment…well, I really had no idea where that was coming from.” When this particular gentleman caller mentioned this incident (months after he was asked politely to leave my abode), I was reticent to accept that I had not been completely honest with him about my dissatisfaction with our relationship. Hadn’t I actually said: “I do not like where this relationship is going.”
Cue the sound of crickets as I thought long and hard to remember when I had actually said those exact words to him. Does pouting vigorously when I didn’t get what I wanted count as being honest?
Hadn’t I stuck to my guns about not allowing him access to my time and the pleasure of my company until he gave in to my vague, hinted at demands for intimacy?
Well, right before I politely asked him to leave my abode, we were naked on my living room floor. So, yeah…
Apparently, this decision on my part to forego the arduous task of giving full voice to my wants and needs leaves me wide open to not having those wants and needs meant. Yes, I could claim that these gentlemen callers took advantage of the loophole my silence created. “What grown man DOESN’T know that any woman in her 30s wants closeness, attention, depth,” I could argue. Unfortunately, such an argument is woefully flawed. The gentleman caller’s choice to take advantage of the loophole does not exonerate me from my repeated choice to create the loophole in the first place.
The dead-upon-arrival courtship officially flat-lined almost two weeks ago. It has been embalmed, eulogized and tucked away into the earth. The painful, complicated relationship has already decomposed to dust. The ghost of the gentleman caller no longer powerful enough to warrant more than a passing shrug of the shoulder. However, my list still lives on. If I could locate it, I would smile proudly at this wonderful human being who I will someday meet. Although I am looking forward to meeting the human being who posesses these wonderful qualities, I am even more excited as I struggle each day to BE this amazing human being who posesses such wonderful qualities. Isn’t working to become more honest and more open simply much more practical than exerting limited energy on hunting down a mate who is honest and open?
Is it even possible to have something/one you are unwilling to be?
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In his memoir, The Discomfort Zone, Jonathan Franzen chronicles the woes and follies of growing up comfortably middle class in 1960’s America. The impressively written collection of essays covers a lot of big ideas about traditional family structures, the reassuring boredom of suburban life and oddly enough…the downward spiral in which our country seems to be spinning – a spin that J. Franz vaguely hints at even when he was coming of age in St. Louis. Far more interesting to read, however, is a particular essay in which J. Franz spends his first year of college trying to lose his virginity.
I use that word “trying” loosely. J. Franz doesn’t really try to lose his virginity. He thinks about how much he is trying to lose his virginity. He thinks about this a lot. As a grown woman reading his accounts of “trying” to get the attention of any kind co-ed who will take away his virginity, I want to tap little 18 year old J. Franz on the shoulder and give him this advice: “Bruh…you aren’t really trying. You keep thinking about the girl. Maybe you should actually DO something?”
I suspect if I dropped these words of wisdom on the 50 year old J. Franz, he would be just as baffled as his 18 year old self. J. Franz would really believe that his thinking about that cute girl in his Russian Literature class could have somehow (perhaps through magic or the miracle of fate) morphed into he and the cute girl somehow being in a situation where they would have possibly kissed and then caressed and then…WHAM…SEX! Even in his humorous depictions of standing in the corner at parties, looking at all the girls dancing and wondering if one of them would be in his bed that night, there is an air of “Why didn’t I ever end up with one of them?” As J. Franz recounts these experiences decades later, he still seems to underestimate how much his lack of action played a key role in his inability to shed his virginal self and the subsequent loneliness that ensues when you are the sole person on your college campus who is not having at least semi-regular sex.
Over the years, I have come across more than a few men who believe as 18 year old J. Franz did. If I do absolutely nothing in the arena of love, the fact that I wanted to/thought about/tried to do something will buy me at least a little bit of attention from the object of my affection. It is a sad delusion that often results in perfectly nice, perfectly sweet men spending year after year wondering why women don’t like them. Why men who are less nice, less sweet still end up with pretty women on their arms.
Right now, there is a 40 year old J. Franz who calls me periodically. Every few weeks, I get a series of enthusiastic calls from Peter in which he leaves me voice mail messages that sound a little bit like this: “I have been thinking about you so much. Call me. I really miss you.” When I do get around to returning Peter’s calls, he proceeds to share all the things he thought about doing with or for me. “I wanted to take you out to brunch since I had to work the night of your birthday party,” Peter sorrowfully informs me. “I wanted to call you last week to see how you were doing,” he will share just as sorrowfully. I am always tickled when Peter seems surprised when I do not react positively to all the things he has thought about over the weeks. He seems even more confused when I do not react negatively to his thoughts either. More often than not, I simply respond to these sharings with, “Oh, okay.”
Since Peter and I run in the same circle of friends, I have come across him randomly at social events or just on the street. When these moments occur, I am reminded again of how much he discounts his inability to act on his attraction to me as a key factor in my indifference to him. Recently, I ran into him at Union Square Park. We hugged, chatted, gossiped a little about mutual acquaintances and then I politely bid him farewell. “It was good seeing you,” I kissed his cheek. “Be well.” Peter stood there and stared. He suggested we head to one of the million Starbucks in the area and have a quick coffee so we could continue our talk. “I’m actually on my way to meet friends,” I explained as I made my way to the subway station. Peter jokingly pleaded: “Just one quick latte. We don’t even have to sit at a table. Just get the coffee and go.” I laughed and kept walking to the train.
Peter actually looked disappointed. While I can understand why he would be, I am flummoxed as to why he would be surprised I didn’t trot to Starbucks with him. A woman chooses to spend her day with friends instead of a few more moments with a man who consistently chooses to remain on the periphery of her life? Makes sense to me. Getting on the train and meeting up with real friends is the logical route any person would take when the alternative is more time with a psuedo-friend whose presence in your life only occurs because of a chance happening on a busy city street.
It is easy to simply write off Peter’s inept attempts at courtship as yet another lazy New York man who is running a bunch of women and therefore, doesn’t feel inclined to make effort with any of them. I don’t believe, however, that Peter is a playboy who has placed me at the bottom of his priority list of beauties. If he were, I wouldn’t be wasting words writing about him. I believe that Peter is J. Franz trying to lose his virginity. He is not a stupid man or a lazy one. When it comes to other aspects of his life, he seems to understand the concept of graduating thoughts into action in order for life to reward you with a tangible thing. Somehow, there is a disconnect in the part of his brain that deals with women and love. As J. Franz’s memoir reveals, Peter is not the first man to suffer from such a disconnect.
And this is what I know with absolute certainity: Both Peter and J. Franz know how to take action in other aspects of their lives. I think of Peter going to his boss to negotiate a pay increase. When his boss asks Peter to explain why he is entitled to a raise, I can not fathom Peter (even on his worst day) rattling off all of the things he THOUGHT about doing for the company. “I thought about staying late to finish those reports.” “Sir, I really, really, really wanted to go to that conference and I would have gone, if…” “Remember when I almost brought in those new clients?” The mere thought of his approaching his professional life that way is completely ridiculous to me. And it would be ridiculous to Peter as well. So, why would he believe that it were less ridiculous to win a woman by doing nothing more than thinking about all the things he should be doing to win her?
The only conclusion I have drawn is that Peter believes “taking action” means something bigger than it really does. After closely listening to men do their own ranting about relationships, I am keenly aware that many falsely believe most women expect to be bowled over with unrealistic amounts of attention, gifts, high pressure dates and endless adoring flirtations. For men like Peter, who are of average charm and humble means, doing nothing might prove to be of less risk than doing a little bit of something and being made to feel that that something wasn’t enough.
I am hopeful that Peter will come across The Discomfort Zone and learn from J. Franz’s story. When J. Franz was finally successful in losing his virginity, he didn’t do much. But he did do something. Here is what happened: A cute girl (not the one from Russian Literature class) invited J. Franz to a party. J. Franz thought about going. Then, J. Franz actually went to the party. At the party, J. Franz. thought about dancing with the cute girl. Shockingly, he then proceeded to actually dance with her. As it got late and the guests dispersed, J. Franz. thought about staying behind and watching a movie with the cute girl whom he had come to learn had similiar tastes in film and music as he. J. Franz actually stayed and watched the movie.
While watching the movie, J. Franz had two more thoughts. He thought it would be nice to put his arm around the cute girl. He thought it would be even nicer to kiss the cute girl. Now, J. Franz actually harbored these thoughts for quite some time. BUT…when he finally promoted those two thoughts to two actions…WHAM…SEX!
While Peter will have to do much more than show up at a party to eventually win over an adult woman, the implication of the scenario is not so far fetching. I think it’s pretty clear what he can learn from this 18 year old mating story. The Spark Notes version: When J. Franz thought, he slept alone. When J. Franz did, a woman magically appeared in his bed. He seemed happier once he started to do.
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In her award winning novel, The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison shares an unfortunate observation about love. Love is only as good as the lover, she warns.
Sobering thought, if ever I read one.
So, if the love an individual gives to another is only as good as that individual herself, then how are any of us expected to offer love that is not…well, let me speak frankly here: How can any human being be capable of love that is not in some way fucked up since MANY of us wander this earth nursing countless emotional wounds that go unnoticed by ourselves and the ones we attempt to love? So, if love is only as good (as whole, as healthy, as pure) as the person who offers it, then how can any mere mortal love another mortal well, wholly, purely?
Quite the dilemma, no?
Rachelle, a newly single woman in her mid-30s, certainly believes so. Rachelle’s encounters with love suggest that Morrison’s observation has a hint of truth. The first person to teach her about love was her father. “Growing up, I was never unsure of his love. I knew he loved me. I knew he would protect me no matter what.” Rachelle even recalls a specific time when she felt uneasy around her father’s male friend. Before she could voice this uneasiness, her father read the look of discomfort in her eyes whenever this particular friend was around. “Does he make you uncomfortable,” her father asked. She nodded and like magic, the creepy friend never stepped foot in their home again.
A very pure and sincere act of love from Daddy. But, while Daddy was saving his daughter from the hands of a (possible) pedophile, he was also snorting cocaine. Starting as a casual pastime, his cocaine use escalated to an addiction by the time Rachelle was a teenager. Rachelle recalls the loving father who hugged and comforted her just as easily as she recalls the father whose drug-induced temper was so volatile and erratic, she sometimes did not know what to expect from him.
In addition to teaching her that love protects, Rachelle’s father also taught her that in order to maintain love, one must be very, very careful not to anger it and chase it away. “I remember one of my first relationships,” she shares. “When I look back on it, I walked on egg shells all the time. Feeling like I really had to avoid making my boyfriend mad. Once, I mistakenly broke something of his and for a few seconds I was terrified he would be so mad with me that he might want to break up.”
How good was Rachelle’s father’s love? It was not without its winning moments. Because of his love, Rachelle came to expect that if a man said he loved her then he would listen to her, take action to give her what she needed and make her feel safe. But, her father’s love also set a template for most of her relationships with men whose love was only as good as they were. A few short weeks ago, she ended a long term relationship with a man who would not commit to her. In addition to his disinterest in marriage, Rachelle also cites a list of self-destructive behaviors in which her boyfriend engaged as factors leading up to their split.
It would be easy to connect the dots from teenaged Rachelle’s relationship with her father to adult Rachelle’s relationship with her ex. Any armchair psychologist would deduce that she subconsciously chose the self-destructive boyfriend because her formative years were spent around a man who routinely self destructed.
“I don’t know if it’s that easy,” Rachelle shakes her head. “Morrison may be on to something with that quote, but I think it passes judgment on people like my father and ex-boyfriend.” Yes, if you are emotionally scarred, if you are addicted to any substance, if you are fearful of commitment, there is only so much of your love you will be able to give. But, her father did give her love. Her ex-boyfriend was sincere in his love. “We didn’t break up because he couldn’t love me enough or because he was unable to really show me how much he cared about me.” According to Rachelle, in both of these pivotal relationships, the men were not completely good, but their love was.
Kind of.
“I don’t know if the relationship I had with my father was healthy. Nor do I know if all the years I spent with my ex were just evidence that Toni Morrison is right!” What Rachelle does know, however, is that both of these men’s love has been valuable. It may not have been the healthiest. It definitely did not come from the “best source.” Still, when it came, it was graciously accepted by her. It provided her with what she needed. It was completely and unquestionably good. Even when the lover was not.
Perhaps the truth really lies in the heartbreaking story of Pecola Breedlove, the protagonist of The Bluest Eye. Yes, Ms. Morrison, love is only as good as the lover. But, at the end of the day, most of us are in the same predicament as Pecola. We long for love. We sacrifice too much for it. We are grateful for it or anything that feels like it or looks like it or promises to turn into it. To consider from whom the love comes and how that source might taint such a coveted commodity is too much to ask of us. So, we love. Broken and poised to break, we love.
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I have this theory about men and love. Specifically, men and love gone bad. I am no expert, but I do believe that for men, a broken heart signifies the genesis of many years of dark and dangerous behavior in romantic relationships. A brokenhearted man once confessed to me that he had managed to “compress my feelings deep down into my stomach until they are merely a lump of coal.” Another explained away his own heartache by joking that “no, I haven’t been in any emotional pain lately; I’ve simply been emotionally unavailable.”
Over the years, I have come to believe that unlike women, men often have a difficult time offering up their hearts to even the most sincere woman when it has been mishandled by a less than sincere one. Case in point: My childhood friend, Tammy, got knocked up in high school. The father of her son was abusive, crass and subjected her to years of emotional and physical abuse. When she escaped his madness, spending a few months in a battered women’s shelter, Tammy met Peter, a worker at the shelter. About a year later she was happily coupled with him. My friend, Conrad, on the other hand, has had his fair share of relationship failures. His biggest occurred when he was in his 30s. A woman with whom he had fallen madly in love dismissed his intense feelings, choosing instead to marry a man who could provide her with an upper middle class life style. Since that time, Conrad has made a conscious choice not to genuinely connect with another woman. “I’m too jaded; I’ve failed too many times at love.” Tammy, who endured emotional torture from the man she loved, was willing to take another risk at love even though logic would suggest love had been no friend to her. Conrad, who endured a very painful failure, allowed such a common casualty of love to deter him from a real connection well into his 40s.
I am perplexed by the vast differences in Conrad’s and Tammy’s reactions to love gone terribly, terribly wrong.
My friend, Bernard, is not. When I shared Conrad’s story with him, he did not seem bewildered at all. As a matter of fact, he verified that Conrad’s perspective is shared by every man he knows. “I have been him,” Bernard casually admits. “Maybe not for ten whole years, but I am very familiar with the place he is in now.” Bernard feels confident in speaking for most men when he says that failing at love is such an undesirable result of taking the leap to love in the first place, that if it does happen to you, the most logical response would be to do everything in your power NOT to put yourself in that predicament again. “I guess a heartbroken woman would continue to seek love even though she might be carrying the same ole baggage into all of her relationships. For men, we simply just don’t seek it – at all. And for some of us, if the failure was so big and so humiliating as it obviously was for Conrad, then we stay in that extreme avoidance of love for many, many years.” Bernard notes that it was the woman who left Conrad for a wealthier man that sent him into this downward spiral. “Men already are insecure about not having enough to keep a woman’s interest.” According to Bernard, if your failure at love stems from a woman not finding you suitable to love based on your bank account, then it prolongs that dark, dangerous period where a man simply sits across the table from a woman or lies in her bed, committing to nothing else but sitting across the table from her or lying in her bed.
Bernard is the first to admit this is not healthy. However, he is also quick to assert that it is the only coping mechanism men have to deal with the pain of love letting them down. “People think men don’t long for love as deeply as women. That could not be farther from the truth.” According to Bernard, young men fantasize about meeting that one woman who is everything they’ve dreamed of: beautiful, supportive, intelligent, willing to set and achieve life goals. Bernard even asserts that men spend a great deal of time agonizing over a relationship in trouble. “Earlier today, my boy called me to ask my advice about problems he’s having with his girl.” When Bernard recited how the conversation went, it sounded identical to the conversations I have had with girlfriends over the years. “I think we long for it even more than women do.” How else to explain the difficulty in moving on when the woman a man loves chooses to no longer love him?
I have never been of the school of thought that men are adverse to love. That they only surrender to it when a determined woman refuses to accept anything less than their love and commitment. I have always wondered if the only reason we assume women are more willing to love is because our culture encourages men to take love – particularly romantic love – for granted. To look at such an intense emotional connection to another human being as the antithesis to manhood. If this is the case, how do men get to the point where Bernard is now? Knocking on 40, he has recently fathered a child and is happily nurturing a fulfilling relationship with his son’s mother. When I asked him if he felt he had enough love in his life, he beamed with laughter. “Oh…I have an abundance!”
So, how did Bernard get from that dark, painful place in which Conrad has permanently settled to a place where he has opened up his life to an onslaught of love? Bernard actually thinks it has nothing to do with men’s inability to love after being hurt or our culture’s ad campaign about the beauty of love being pitched solely to women. When he thinks about all that he has learned about love and how to sustain it, he sees one common thread between all the genres of love he is blessed to experience right now. “Love with absolutely no expectation,” he advises, “and you will find that it not only makes you happier, but it also makes the love itself grow much deeper.” When he was younger, Bernard had lots of expectations when he offered his heart. When he loved, the recipient of that love was expected to respond in specific ways before he felt secure enough to love further. His love came with an invisible contract. He made certain that a clear signature was at the bottom before he gave 100%.
“The same reason I lovingly hold my son because he is fussy is the same reason why I lovingly hold his mother when she is upset.” Although I would argue that it is much easier to take such a diplomatic approach to loving your child than to loving a romantic partner, Bernard is convinced that there really shouldn’t be any distinction. “Love is pure,” he explains. When it becomes convoluted, it is because people sully it with their own agendas and expectations. “I love my son because it makes him happy. I love my girlfriend because it makes her happy. I love my mother because it makes her happy.” Bernard has managed to make the GIVING of his love uninfluenced by his RECEIVING love. “I might get the love back the way I want it; I might not. I still give my love either way.”
Perhaps, this is why his feelings are not compressed into a lump of coal. Sounds like a much easier and more energizing place to be.
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I am a very smart cookie. I have only been on this planet for 34 years and in that time I’ve figured out several of life’s indecipherable mysteries. I have solved a few of those puzzles the universe throws our way simply to confuse us beyond our senses while it points and chuckles over in the corner. For instance, I have already realized (and accepted) that no matter how much you love your chosen profession, you will still spend EVERY Sunday evening fighting depression, dreading whatever mayhem your boss snuck onto your desk as soon as you left the office on Friday evening. I have figured out that even if you have the kindest, most supportive and nurturing mother, there will STILL be moments when you see her number on your cell phone and you will press mute, pretending that you involuntarily missed her call.
For all my enlightenment, however, there are still many things I don’t get. Many mysteries in this life that leave me flummoxed. Signs in subway stations that read: Northeast corner. People who enjoy cleaning, cooking, doing laundry. Algebra. Living in Iowa, Ohio, anywhere in middle America, actually.
The biggest mystery that continues to elude me is this loaded word we humans call love.
For all I think I know about love, there are a host of questions that sit on my psyche as I, like most mortals, go about living a life in which I am daily faced with the challenge of loving. So, what does it take to love another human being? Do different genres of love require different skills from the lover? Is love a passive emotion or does it require as much energy, as much determination as hate, happiness, anger? Do most of us feel we have an adequate amount of love in our lives?
I took these loaded questions to my friend, Katrina. Since she is an even smarter cookie than me, I figured she’d have something profound to say.
Katrina waxed poetic, explaining that even when she lacks romantic love in her life, she still feels surrounded by love. I expected her to supply the requisite admonishment of confident single gals the world round: “I have my friends, my family…I have LOTS of love in my life.” Katrina surprised me, however, by voicing an even broader view of love. “The universe is full of love,” she pointed out. She spoke of first coming to this realization when she went camping. While resting in a hammock and gazing up at a tree whose bare branches blew in the wind, she realized the tranquil peace that she felt was, in fact, love. “When I stop myself from being driven every which way by anxiety and worry and really just sit and look at a flower or even a regular ole tree, it becomes clear to me how much love the universe has at its disposal.”
Katrina is of the belief that we are all one with the universe. Therefore, if there are copious manifestations of love in the cosmos, then there has to be just as much love (if not, more) within us. “Some people see that love in the eyes of their children or they feel it when they are with their partner,” Katrina went on to explain, “but, I think even without such concrete representations, each of us already has love in our lives.” According to Katrina, the only reason why many people don’t feel that love within themselves is because they either don’t know how or choose not to access it.
I’ve known Katrina for a very long time; I was not aware she was such an enlightened, thoughtful soul. When I jokingly asked, “Dude, can I start calling you Buddha,” Katrina blushed and waved off my compliment. She explained that it took her a while to figure this out. Like all of us, when she was in her late teens/early 20s, there was only one type of love worth thinking about: romantic. There was only one goal: to get it. There were many reasons you thought you wanted it, but after much self-reflection, it is now clear that the real reason you fought so long and hard for it was: you believed it validated you in some way. “Friends had boyfriends. They fell in love. It looked like fun. They seemed so happy. So, I wanted all of that, too.” Romantic love would give you a husband and nights snuggled next to him. Romantic love promised you a life of less loneliness. It promised you a future.
“I, obviously, don’t deny my desire for romantic love,” Katrina went on to explain. In her mid-30s, marriage and family are very important to Katrina. She does view her search for love a bit differently now, though. Unlike when she was in college, Katrina realizes that romantic love has its limitations. “Universal love doesn’t.” When she contemplates this statement further, Katrina is able to express why universal love is really the foundation for any other type of love.
“Not only are we one with the universe,” she explains. “Each of us is one with each other.” I am not merely similar to the man who sits next to me on the train reading his book. I am that man. And that man is me. According to Katrina, when we are able to tap into the love that exists within us, we naturally relate in more loving ways to the fellow mortals we encounter in our daily lives. If we are unable to acknowledge this universal connection (love?), then how can we truly sustain love with a romantic partner?
I went into my conversation with Katrina hoping she would answer if not all of my questions, maybe one or two. I went into my conversation with Katrina hoping to learn something. Oddly enough, the conversation taught me nothing; it really only confirmed the ONE thing I was 150% sure of about love: it comes from within. Love, in its purest form, has little to do with the person whom we choose to love. It has more to do with us and our ability to tap into what is the natural state of the universe.
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Once the holidays were over, but before the beautiful boredom of the normal routine of life continued, I began most conversations with the standard post-Christmas greeting: “So, how was your holiday?” The responses were the typical: “Stressful.” “Glad I didn’t have to work, but…God, my family gets crazier and crazier every year.” One friend actually surprised me by smiling and saying: “It was GREAT!” When I jokingly replied: “Wow, you’re the first one to answer so enthustiacally,” she quickly set me straight. “Well, I decided not to spend the ENTIRE time with my family. I flew out the day after Christmas.”
I am all too familiar with the mixture of aggravation, exasparation and weariness one feels when forced to spend several days with people who share your last name. While I am not such a cynic that I find the expectation of family togetherness during Christmas to be a futile farce, I am a realist. An honest one. There is no combination of people who can spark equal amounts of rage and fatigue more than the dozen or so wackos who break bread with you on Christmas Day.
In years past, I have felt like many of the friends who spent this past holiday season biting their tongues and grinding their teeth. I rolled my eyes at sisters in law as they offered me thinly veiled judgments dressed up conspicously as “helpful advice.” I have bit my tongue as cousins shared asinine get-rich-quick schemes with me, asking me to go on wild goose chases around Chinatown when I got back to New York in order to aid in their schemes that were doomed to fail. I have diplomatically “agreed to disagree” with the uninformed, idiotic political and religious views of in laws and other peripheral family members. In years past, I have eagerly gotten on an airplane as soon as my familial obligations were complete.
This year I took a vow of acceptance. It was an informal one. I did it in front of my altar as I went through my normal evening prayers. I simply thought: Perhaps, I will forgo the judgment of family this year and just accept them as they are. Perhaps I will accept that certain unfortunate comments will fall from their lips. Perhaps I will accept that a series of redundant, raucaus “debates” will occur among certain people who happen to share my last name. And most of all, I will accept that the woman who shares my last name (and who happens to have given birth to me as well) will have a minor life-altering crisis to which she will overreact and speak in hyperbolic accuastions such as: “No one gives a damn about what happens to me; maybe I should just go sleep under the bridge!”
So, a month ago, I walked into the wonderful winter warmth of New Orleans basking in my vow to ACCEPT. To shun judgment, choosing instead to live in the light of compassionate Buddhahood.
It was difficult to keep my vow. My first day there a person who shares my last name decided to get my feedback on an idea for an innovative invention he had been considering for months. This person exuberantly explained that since most people use their cell phones to tell the time now-a-days, a nifty invention would be a cell phone that could be worn on your wrist. “Like you would wear a watch!,” he elaborated as I worked hard to make my face look neutral. When I asked him if he had done any reasearch to see if this innovative idea either already existed or (more likely) didn’t exist because there was no market for it, the person who shared my last name looked surprised. He told me his next step in the invention process was to start looking for investors to make this wrist watch/cell phone thing happen. “How can I go about researching it anyway,” he shrugged. “You don’t know what people want until you offer it to them.”
I could have shared all the things that were wrong with his premature plan. But, I had made a solemn vow. And I was on my way to get a po boy. I imagined how this much-cherished culinary experience of mine would be tainted if I shared it with someone whose ill-planned dream I had just belittled. The fried shrimp lying yummily in between two fresh slices of french bread might not taste as savory if I had to devour it while apologizing profusely to an angry person who was kind enough to buy me a po boy.
I wished the person who shared my last name luck. We ate a po boy. I took a nap. All was right with the world.
Several days into my vow, I spent THREE DAYS with the woman who gave birth to me. It was during this experience that I realized the true freedom in acceptance. While most mother-daughter relationships are fraught with complex emotions and paradoxes, the one I share with my mother is a unique twist on the time-honored tradition of adult daughters being driven crazy by their mothers. When it comes to what makes my relationship with my mother a potential for developing a substance abuse problem, it really is about basic differences in personality and perspectives. For instance, I am a fan of logic and reason. My mother is not. I believe in action-oriented approaches to problem solving. My mother believes in creating problems for herself and then voicing disbelief of and anger with the world for being a place that does not accomodate an individual’s repeated decisions to act irresponsibly.
This Christmas my mother voiced this disbelief to me several times. Once, she was severely annoyed that the cable company cut off her cable the day after Christmas. When I asked her if she had paid the bill, she unabasdedly answered, “Well, no, I didn’t.” When I innocently joked, “Well, then doesn’t it make sense that your cable was cut off; I mean, your not paying the bill and all,” she looked at me as if I were completely clueless to the bigger issue she saw in the cable company cutting off service she had not paid for.
“I mean, it’s Christmas,” she huffed and puffed. “It’s like they’re saying, ‘We don’t care if you had to buy gifts for your kids, we’re still gonna cut off your service.'” At this point I could have further offered my more logical and reasonable take on this sinister plot Cox Cable formulated to punish my mother for not paying them. For instance, I could have reminded her that she had not, in fact, bought gifts for her kids. Nor her grand kids for that matter. That her decision to not pay Cox Cable was not a noble one, steeped in Single Mother Sacrifice And Selflessness.
But, I remembered my vow. I remembered how much better that po boy had tasted once I had fought valiantly to keep my vow to live with acceptance.
“Yeah, that was kindda cruel of the cable company,” I pretended to finally understand her annoyance. “I am sure that somewhere here in this city some mother didn’t pay her cable bill because she bought her kids food or an Ipod touch instead.”
My mother seemed satisfied that I understood her outrage at the cable company’s lack of compassion. She even noted that my being able to admit that she was right was a sign of my maturity.
I ate a bowl of left over gumbo. I took a nap. All was right with the world.
This concept of accepting people. Of not expending energy on judging their actions, questioning thier choices. Instead, simply surrendering to the reality of this is who this person is, always has been and always will be makes it all the easier for someone to accept the same reality about you.
This Christmas was quite possibly the most enjoyable one yet. Accepting the truth of my family freed up so much time in my day and space in my brain. I was able to eat more, nap more and even exercise more. I was so impressed with how much happier acceptance made my holiday that I carried my vow with me back to work. I’ve learned to accept that the teenaged brain is a bizarre little mechanism that seems to function quite differently than my own. A few weeks into the new year, a teenaged person voiced irritation with me for putting a big red F across a quiz she had failed.
I explained that the F was only there because SHE had failed the quiz and not because “F” was my favorite letter of the alphabet so I just went all crazy writing it across every quiz I graded. When she replied that she still thought it was kind of wrong of me to “actually write F across the paper like I did bad,” I decided to accept something: She was 13. And so was her brain.
I ate my pastrami sandwich. Went to the bathroom and had a pee. All was right with the world.
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Yet Another Single Gal 