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Posts from the ‘Autobiography’ Category

Sep 24

13 Comments

What’s in a name?

I can’t get a real grip on what exactly I was thinking when I decided to get married. I feel that I just made a decision and then became obstinate: I would go through with it.  I knew he was the wrong person…and yet I was in love with him.  

It astounds me now to hear myself say those words: “I knew he was the wrong person.”  And I married him anyway.  How could I have recognized what was fundamentally disastrous in that relationship, and at the same time have felt we would be married “until death do you part”. It doesn’t add up: I could acknowledge the weak spots, but couldn’t envision the future consequences.  I couldn’t see down the line of that inevitable sequence of chain reactions.

Still, I didn’t take his last name.  “I want to write a book someday, and when I do, I want to use my own name.”  And if he ever had to explain it to someone, that’s exactly what he told them.  Hearing it gave me a pang of guilt and sadness, and I felt like a fraud.  I felt sorry for him, and wondered if he really cared.  He said no, but we weren’t always honest about what we were feeling.

As a simple statement, it was true.  But I didn’t admit that there was more to my decision than books I never really expected to write.  What I didn’t say is that I wasn’t ready to give up all of myself.  Not to him.  I was not through with her, the girl with my name.  I was not willing to relinquish whatever it was that she represented to me.  Maybe it was the idea that I should someday be more, and I wanted that more to be branded with my own name.

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Not to him.  But that’s the kicker: not to him.

Maybe I didn’t trust him enough.  Maybe I didn’t have faith that he could lead.

Of course, I was right.

♦

Last time: lighting myself on fire

Next time: Honesty

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Sep 13

34 Comments

Happy Birthday to Me

Today is my birthday, and I don’t usually…

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Oh, you…

Thank you.  Thanks so much.

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That’s very kind, thank you…

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It’s no big deal – it’s just a birthday.  Everybody has one!

Really,  there’s no need for applause!

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Okay…I’ll wait.

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So what I was saying is that I usually don’t remember my birthday, much less do anything special for it.  I’ll think about it in July or August, but as the time draws near, I always forget again.  I think that’s because I want to deny it’s happening because that means I’m getting older and that means there’s less time left to do great things and that means I’m, like, so failing at this life thing and, O.M.G., I’m getting OLD, and “What is THAT?  THAT!”, is that a new wrinkle, because I think that’s a new wrinkle, oh my, I’ve got one foot in the grave already, “What a world! What a world!”, and that’s an appropriate quote ’cause I am totally starting to look like the witch in The Wizard of Oz, but not the good witch I am humble.

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I’m sorry, where was I?

Oh yes…  So, I went to dinner a few nights ago with my friends Terri and John, a truly lovely couple, and they surprised me with a birthday card (and dinner, aren’t they sweet?!).  I was confused at first, but then I thought, “Oh no yeah, it’s my birthday this week.”  Here is the card:

Yay for sharks that can’t jump off a card and eat you up!

You know, because I love sharks.

There’s a note on the inside that says they only picked this card because they couldn’t find a zombie card.

You know, because I love zombies.

But that’s what friends are for, right?  They are here to tease us about our quirks and all of the foolish things we do.  They are here to help us celebrate the fact that, though we may not be teenagers anymore (and really, thank God for that!), it’s still pretty awesome not being dead yet.

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Friendship and family are such a blessing, and I’m so blessed to have spent this last year with you.  I’m looking forward to what the next year brings, with my old friends and new.

Thank you so much, my blog friends and family!  Thank you for sticking with me as I navigate my way through the changing landscape that is my life.  You have supported me and sometimes coddled me, you’ve offered encouragement and guidance, laughter and insight.  You continue to shore me up.

I may not cherish getting older, but I cherish all of what it brings me.

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Well, maybe not those wrinkles.

♦

Sep 10

18 Comments

Country roads lead me home.

People ask me all the time, “Aren’t you scared, living out there in the country all by yourself?”

And I always think, “Noooo…aren’t you  scared living in the city?”

Country crazies stick to ourselves themselves;  that’s why they live in the country.  Except for the ones who were born here and just never escaped.

But city crazies are the social types.  They don’t like to be alone, they like to come stand by you.  And they can follow you home and you wouldn’t even know it.  Do you think I wouldn’t figure it out if someone was following me home?

“Hmmm, that car has been behind me for 30 minutes, making every turn that I do, country road after country road…  Well, I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.”

See my driveway? It’s there.

The city crazies would have stopped following me by the time I got on the highway, or if I go the back way, maybe they’d hang on 10 minutes or so, but I doubt it.

So, when people ask me that question, I always answer that most crime happens in the city, not the country.  We don’t get a lot of muggings around here, and people don’t drive out all this way just to cause trouble.  If something of yours gets stolen, you can almost guarantee you know the person who did it.  And all the crazy killer types don’t much care to bother with us.

To which I always get some variation of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre thrown at me.  “That’s not true!  Terrible things always happen down some back road, in some little cabin, in the middle of the woods!”

Have you even been listening to me?  Have you learned nothing from these movies?

Let me explain.  No, let me sum up: that’s just the country way of saying, “Hey you, kid!  Get off my lawn!”

My front yard.

Sometimes I do get the impression that the grass is out to get me.

Aren’t most of those movies about people who wind up in places they shouldn’t be?  Maybe they get lost and knock on the wrong door for directions.  Maybe their car breaks down in front of the wrong long dirt road.  Maybe they even go looking for mischief – and then they find it.  Whatever the case, the country crazies don’t generally come out looking for you. It’s not really their fault if you go find them, is it? Nobody invited you.

So no, creepy slasher movies that happen way out in the country don’t make me scared to live, well, way out in the country.  I do, however, believe in “better safe than sorry.”  So I have two security systems in place:

Louis: security guard, first defense, weapon of mass barking, attack dog (trained in both the I Will Jump on You I Can Reach Your Knees and Just Because I Won’t Come Near You Doesn’t Mean I’m Not Dangerous schools of combat).

Zombie early warning system. Crack the door and look in the mirror before you open up the storm door. Okay, this is not a great plan, but it’s what I’ve got.

Having said all this, I’ll admit that I get a little weirded out if Louis is acting nervous. Not so much when we’re outside, because I figure it’s just another animal that he’s smelling. But when he’s acting like that inside the house? That’s creepy.

And every now and then, I’ll come up that long, dark (cause it’s always night when this happens) driveway, pull up to the house, and the chills will go down my spine. It’s the sharks all over again: something unseen and menacing and utterly imaginary is stalking me. I’ll go searching through closets and under beds and around corners and into dark rooms. No boogie man is going to jump out at me! Better to face my fears and know for sure I’m foolish there is nothing to worry about.  Of course I never find anything; I’m the only crazy one there.

Oh, and stay off my lawn.

♦

Items of Interest:

What to do if you think you’re in a scary movie

Wherefore At My Door, Opossum, Oh Possum

A Snake in the Grass…err…Weeds

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Aug 15

21 Comments

lighting myself on fire

He begged me to marry him.

There were reasons to keep saying no: we hadn’t been together very long, he smoked too much pot, he was younger than me…  As seen from the eyes of my mostly good-girl life, his had been much, much wilder than mine.  He had been drinking and partying, running the streets and unsupervised, since he was a kid.  For all that, or perhaps because of it, he could be tremendously insecure.  We once had a four hour, middle-of-the-night argument about whether or not I would leave him for Keanu Reeves.  He was adamantly, frustratingly convinced that I would, and called me a liar when I said I wouldn’t.  It was a fight as breathtakingly desperate as it was ridiculous.  It would have been funny if it hadn’t been so completely exhausting, and if he hadn’t been so thoroughly angry about it.  He knew how to throw a verbal punch, too, having learned how to fight dirty from his family.  He was the first person who ever stung me with a curse in anger.

Of course, I had my issues, too.  I just didn’t realize it yet.

I had left him once already, but there were complicated emotional reasons that drew me back.  To begin with, I loved him.  Why do we – how do we – fall in love with someone so unlike ourselves?  So unlike what we think we want in a partner?  So seemingly wrong for us?  We did have fun together, and much of our relationship was good.  In so many ways, we were a team – we had humor in common, we enjoyed the same activities, liked the same movies.  We made memories.  And so, despite all those things that I didn’t like about him, I still loved him.  The truth is, I was lonely without him.  I was alone without him.

Maybe those “complicated reasons” weren’t so complicated after all.  

A week after I broke up with him, I went back.  Three months later we were getting married.  No one supported us.  Of course that hurt, but you can’t expect people who love you to stand back and watch, smiling and applauding as you light yourself on fire.

And I still had my own trepidations, all those issues I was aware of.  But I did not want to truly examine them.  He made promises that I chose to believe, even as my instincts told me not to.  He wanted marriage.  He wanted to “settle down”.  He had partied all he could bear, and he wanted the wife and the home and all that we thought marriage entailed.  You know: pink houses and picket fences and all that.  He wanted to marry me; it was the most, the only thing worth having in his life.

A strong argument.

Basically, I said yes and then became determined to go through with it.  As much as I knew there were landmines enclosed within that picket fence, I would not turn back.  The craziest thing (or most natural?) is that I thought it would work.  I never thought I would get divorced.  I could tread softly.  I could dig those landmines up if ever I needed to.  I could do this.  And whatever conviction I lacked, he had more than enough for both of us.

So, we went alone.  We got married at a little church called Chapel by the Sea.  It was sweet.  And for a few hours, at least, it stayed that way.

♦

Next time: What’s in a name?

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