Vodka and Other Ruminations

It’s Sunday and the end of blogging Week #1.  It was a good idea to do this blogging thing – it gave me a healthy focus – that and Joey.   No anti-depressants, acupuncture or Chinese herbs for Sarah.   I know how to heal myself.

So the date.   He never showed – he left me a message that his work event ran longer than he anticipated, whatever that means.   Is it wrong I was relieved?  I sent him a message that it was just as well we didn’t meet – that I am probably emotionally unavailable for a while yet, going through a tough breakup.   I never heard back from him.

But Schaller’s on Friday – it was a lot of fun.  The evening started crabby, talking my friend off the despair ledge, getting a late start, too much traffic, worried I was standing up my date (hadn’t gotten his message at that point).  But once we were there and the martinis were flowing we were very silly and silly was fun.   I sang well which was a relief – my voice is back and only once did I almost lose my composure.   It was “All of Me” – the way I do it slowly at the beginning before picking up the tempo.   I don’t think anyone but Liza knew I was in trouble – maybe Bobby, the pianist, knew too.   I’ve never been on stage and lost it before – and I did get through it, barely, with some awkward pauses between phrases while I swallowed down tears that threatened to spill over.   Liza said she whispered to herself, “Come on. You can do it,” and was relieved when I rallied.  

And then there was the funniest part of the evening.   While I sang "All of Me" so believably and with such pathos, there was a man who was riveted.   He stood with his friends at the bar, transfixed.  When I returned to my seat he came over – handsome, young, sure of himself.   We chatted.  He flirted.   I looked on my smart phone for lyrics to a song he wanted to sing.   He made fun of me for being so North Shore and said I was probably all style and no substance.  He mocked my long fingernails and the problem I was having with my phone.   He asked me to feed him one of my olives which I did.  He thanked me with an unexpected kiss.    And then he left, saying, “Sweetheart, I’ll see you around.”  He didn’t look back.  It was perfect…..a flirt, being appreciated, a kiss…..but nothing more and no need for follow up.   It’s all I can handle now.   I hope I never see him again because I’m already fond of that memory.

No new bad habits….that is my motto.   Most of you know about the epic list I made years ago.   I can pinpoint the day when I decided to grab life’s brass ring.   I itemized all the things I needed to fix about myself - the list was huge.   I needed to lose 175 pounds and become fit, tend to my grooming and beauty, find creative outlets, become less angry, learn intimacy skills, face up to my unhappy marriage, and more.   I challenged myself to do it all – to give myself a shot at happiness.   Since then I have lost 125 pounds, my health is fabulous thanks to lots of exercise and clean eating, I sing seriously, I write for mental health, I have visited the chasm of childhood insanity and survived stronger, I left a marriage that deadened me, my relationship with my kids is so much better, I am comfortable with physical intimacy, I got rid of the television and my home is a creative sanctuary.    It’s wonderful and amazing and I’m proud of myself.   I attribute the changes to a strong will to live and thrive, a good support system and a lot of discipline.

So…no new bad habits.  Why would I want to start anything that would dilute or undermine the progress I’ve made?   To be fully present, to be joyfully functioning, you need to challenge yourself daily and be on the lookout for anything that holds you back, makes you complacent, keeps you from living well.   There are times to say “no” to yourself.    We all know what we need to be well.   It’s just so damn hard at times to put it into practice.   Rules, rules, rules – yuck.   But if we make rules for ourselves because we love ourselves, because we are being our own good parent, that is good.

Vodka.   I’m not going to drink it anymore.   It’s a new bad habit.   I’ve never been much of a drinker – until the renaissance I maybe had 1-2 drinks a month.   Then the separation and I was out 4-5 nights per week.   Suddenly the social activities I planned all included liquor:  all the singing stuff I do, dinner with friends, even drinks after the writing group.   Liquor everywhere.   And then an affair with a certain pianist and a new love and appreciation for a well made martini, fussing over the choice of vodka (splitting hairs over whether Stoly, Grey Goose, Ketel 1, or Belvedere was the best and debating the merits of a blue cheese stuffed olive over a traditional manzanilla pimento stuffed one).

So I’ve come to love a good martini, or two or in the case of Friday, three.   And each martini is the equivalent of at least two drinks, so wow!   And many of my friends are hard drinking martini lovers as well, so there is camaraderie there.   But this is not good, right?   I’ve never until this last year been a drinker – I’ve led my entire life as a bit of a prude, making a fuss over having a single glass of wine.   Why would I want a new bad habit to take me into the last chapters of my life?   And older people often DO acquire new bad habits.   My mother was never a drinker and now she has several glasses of wine a day to squelch her loneliness.   This is feeling like a potentially slippery slope.    I also never want to be a person who sits alone at a bar, part of the lonely heart’s club, sipping a cocktail, and waiting for someone to talk to me.   Put me out of my misery before I am one of them.

New rules.    #1 No more martinis – alcohol limited to a single, wonderful glass of wine, then switch to tea.   #2 Alcohol limited to three nights a week which means no more than three glasses of wine per week  #3 Never drink alone at home or alone at a bar (I don’t do this now, but I will remind myself to never start).  And having made all these rules, I will make them the norm, but feel free to break them once in a while.   If it’s New Year’s and I want a martini, I’m going to indulge.

So, boring post I know, but this blog is about being well.   I am sincerely worried about the effects of alcohol. I worry about my friends who are drenching their pain in booze – I just wish they could be happy without it.   I worry that it’s so easy to anesthetize ourselves when we should be facing up to whatever is on our plate and not trying to escape through the use of substance.   Here's an idea!  What if I invited my friends over on a Friday night and I put on some new age music and we sat around on yoga mats and held hands and closed our eyes and were comforted by each others’ presence?   What if we used calming music and a peaceful environment along with each others’ warmth to decompress from a stress-filled week?   We could drink ginger tea and eat grape leaves and play board games and feel really great on Saturday morning.

Reptilian Thinking

I’ve been thinking about this whole grieving thing and whether it’s pathetic and whether pathetic is necessarily a bad thing.   Pathetic as defined as “affecting or moving the feelings” would seem to be an appropriate reaction to seeing someone you care about suffer.   But if being pathetic is to be “so miserable as to be ridiculous” to quote another source, then that’s another thing.  My friends and family love and care about me – they are worried about me.   They see me spinning my wheels like a whirling dervish, stuck in a heartsick place, not moving forward.   It has been almost two months since my two month relationship ended and I am not OK.   I am a broken record of “what if’s” and “if only’s”.  

Recently a friend ended a much longer relationship – a 13 year marriage.   He is being brave, forward moving, taking on the huge task of starting over, rebuilding his life.   And yet sometimes he descends into self pity, worry about the future, fearful he’s making the wrong choice.  And when he gets this way there is absolutely nothing I or anyone can say to him to budge him from his pity pot.   I can remind him of just how miserable he was, how it’s better to be alone than alone in a bad marriage, that he has, just in time, extricated his foot from the grave, that there are tons of eligible woman looking for someone as interesting as he.   That he is embarking on a wonderful new life.   He will hear none of it.  His reptilian brain is convinced he is never going to be loved again - that that he will die alone to be found weeks later, rotting in his bed.  The reptilian brain provides the drive for life and survival – it is primal thinking.   It doesn’t listen to reason.   So, when my friend is thinking like a lizard, there is no reasoning with him – at those times, all my positive comments can’t penetrate his leathery lizard skin.  And the reality is that some people DO die alone.   I recently inquired of a mutual acquaintance, about a woman I admired, a dog trainer extraordinaire who had worked with me and my first dog.   I was horrified to hear that she had died in her car, not to be found for weeks while her dogs starved in her house.   She had many.  A few lived but barely.  So yeah, these kinds of stories give us pause but they are not the norm, thankfully.

And who am I to cast stones and become impatient with my friend?   Seeing him descend to these unattractive depths is like holding a mirror to myself - pathetic.   It takes a lizard to know a lizard.   My friends and therapist have, for the past months, tried to reason with me.  Just as it’s statistically impossible for Earth to have the only intelligent life in the universes, it would be extremely unlikely that my relationship with Patrick spells the end of my love life.   My friends point out that I am beautiful, talented, outgoing, that I make connections easily, that I am loveable.   Patrick, himself, said that someone will snatch me up – that they won’t believe their good fortune that I am unattached.  So when I tell myself lightening won't strike twice, that maybe two months in a lifetime is all the love I get, that I will grow old alone - disappointed and bitter, that I will never again experience great sex, blah, blah blah I'm being an iguano or a gecko or a komodo dragon.  

I am not covered in scales or leathery bumps, I get it.   My life is NOT over.   There is love for me, probably right around the corner.   Kaveh says I have grown to have a huge heart, with the capacity for great love.   He says it wasn’t always that way – that when he met me, my heart had shrunk like the Grinch’s  - that I was operating like a tyrant robot.  Seriously bad, huh?    I’ve had a renaissance since then – I now live bravely, optimistically,  passionately and with gusto for the first time.   I take risks.  I trust in the future but enjoy the moment.  I love well and often.  I rejoice in my life.

Patrick was my first love despite the fact that I’ve had other boyfriends and two husbands - they were mostly all business relationships.  I was incapable of loving or being loved.   When I met Patrick I was ripe to experience all that love had to offer and I did.   It lasted too short (two months).   I didn’t get a whole meal, just a taste and I now want more.  I will get more.

So, I will tell my friend that he and I need to do better.   We need to recognize reptilian thinking for what it is and shut it down when we are in the throes of it.   We need to listen to logic and talk ourselves off the ledge of despair when what we are telling ourselves are irrational lies.   It’s a dangerous place to dwell – in that dank cave of gloom where, like Golum, we obsess and fret and grow weaker and paler, and start to believe in our own fearful scenarios.

I will tell him that creativity is the key to shedding our reptile skin.   Lizards are not creative - humans are.   By writing this blog I am creating something worthy.   By adopting an abused dog, I am creating a new life for a beautiful animal who deserves to be happy.   By singing, I am filling the air with art.   Tomorrow I will cook and write some more and if those lizard thoughts start to seep back into my brain, I will recognize them as primitive fears that should be given short shrift.

Can you tell I’m feeling better?  Hugs to you all. Tomorrow I will tell you about my "date" last night and we will discuss vodka.

Oh, and on an administrative note, I added a "gadget" to this site.   At the top of the post there is a spot where, if you put in your e-mail address and hit the submit button, you will get an e-mail notification of new content on the blog.   I'm not sure if the content will appear in the e-mail or whether it's just a reminder to read it with a link.   

Internet Dating

I have a date tonight.   He is a trial attorney…he sounds nice.   And I like that the last good book he read is A Team of Rivals by Doris Kearnes Goodwin.   I’ve appointed Lincoln as my spiritual father – when the going gets tough and I need to draw on elder wisdom, I always ask myself what Lincoln would tell me to do….seriously.   In the absence of a good father, he is my "go-to" role model.  I am inspired when I think of his bravery....he always strove to do the right thing, more often than not against public opinion and advice.   During the war, each night, when he was presented the battlefield report, he would suffer over his decision to send more young men to their deaths, really suffer, and yet each day, he gave orders that would result in more deaths, knowing the nation was at stake.   I suspect his death was in some ways a blessing .....the toll he suffered for his leadership was too high.   Between the death of his children and the deaths of so many young men, his sorrow had to be more than one person could bear.    So, this attorney.  Promising, yes?  He is a fan of Lincoln.   We will have something to talk about.   And he has a summer home on 200 acres in Wisconsin where he entertains every weekend.  That sounds like fun.

I have a profile on an Internet dating site.  I never surrendered my membership even when Patrick and I were dating – I just never bothered to check it.  And surprisingly I don’t get that many matches sent to me.   I can’t figure it out.   I don’t think I’m that picky.   Here are my requirements as written on my profile.  Let me know if you think I need to make any changes. (Leave me a comment!)

Looking for a man who is tall and handsome. He should be no shorter than 6’1” and weigh no less than 260 lbs.   I prefer gray or white hair and my match should have a beard and moustache.   I expect my match to be well educated with advanced degrees, really nothing less than a PhD, and he should draw a six figure income.   He should be physically brave and have served his country – either a Marine or a Navy Seal.  He should be strong with huge, well developed muscles.   I expect my match to have exceptional intelligence with an IQ of at least 135.   He should be well read and literary – an English undergraduate degree would be a plus so we can discuss great literature and plays.   A calm and gentle disposition is a requirement, slow to anger, quick to praise.   A great laugh and a quick wit is also something I must have - and also great social skills.  He should love music and the arts, enjoy simple pleasures, home cooked meals and entertaining.   In bed he should be a masterful and generous lover.  

I’m befuddled why I’m not being presented with a long list of candidates who fit that profile.   Surely there must be a lot of guys out there who qualify!  I just don’t get it! 

So tonight, a date.   I am not ready to date.   This person found me – I didn’t look for him as I have sworn off dating for a time.   But I didn’t say no, although perhaps I should have.   I already feel sorry for him and we haven’t even met yet.   He will meet me at the bar that I sing at on Fridays.   That is also how I met Patrick.   I will be pleasant to him, probably impress him with my singing, listen politely to his stories and then I will tell him, Thanks but no thanks."   So, why did I say yes?    I guess I’m hungry to move on, to be free of this pain, to get to the next phase of my life.   But Kaveh would say, “Sit with the pain a while longer.  Just as you can’t hurry love, you can’t hurry healing."    When the crying has stopped, when my mind has quieted, when everything I see or hear around me doesn’t remind me of Patrick, when I find myself going for a day without thinking of him, when my heart is at peace again, when I no longer have to write frenetically to ice the pain, when all these things happen, I will date again.

Tonight I will sing my heart out.   I've been sick with a deep cough that has battered my vocal chords, a cold that should have resolved itself by now.   I'm sure grief is not a good tonic for health.   My voice is as fragile as I am, but I will sing tonight, probably 6-7 songs.   I will be singing to an empty chair that was once inhabited by a very beautiful, large man who only had eyes for me.   Here are the songs I will sing:

There Will Never Be Another You

After You've Gone

The Man that Got Away

The Nearness of You (that was our song)

I've Never Been in Love Before (another song I used to sing privately to P.)

All of Me (his favorite - an upbeat but very sad song)

At Last

But dating?  Tonight is already a mistake.  

Patrick's Bakery

Liza says she and I should open up a bakery and sell cakes muffins and cupcakes.   She says my baked goods are head and shoulders above the stuff that’s out there.   One place in Wilmette has great frosting but lousy cake, and the new snobby cupcake store in Evanston has great cake but yucky frosting.   You’d think if you were opening up a cupcake store, you’d ace it, right?  And you all have had my "better-than-sex chocolate cake", or to be more accurate my “almost-better-than-sex-chocolate cake”   I had to rename it at Patrick’s insistence and my concurrence.

So, we open the bakery and Liza says we name it “Patrick’s” – she has a sick and twisted sense of humor.   I guess it’s because of the whole dog naming thing - that naming critters and things “Patrick” seem funny and apropos to her, even though I'm supposed to be trying to forget him.

So picture me in my bakery named “Patrick’s”, trying to stay busy, trying to be OK, productively going about the business of trying to forget him, humming happily to myself as I frost cupcakes.   A nice man comes in – he asks to speak with the owner, Patrick.  I am outraged.   I say, “Are you fucking kidding me?  Is this some kind of a joke?  He is confused.  “I don’t know what you mean, mam – could you please let Patrick know a customer would like to speak with him?”   He says that painful name a second time.  “Are you a fucking sadist sir?” I shriek.  “Why would you torment me by mentioning his name?”   He is even more confused – he insists he just wants to speak with the owner to give his compliments – he wants to talk with Patrick.   I can’t bear to hear him speak Patrick’s name over and over.  I berate the gentleman for his cruelty, his insensitivity, his utter lack of discretion.   With daggers in my eyes, I reach into the case of lovely confections and, one by one, start pelting him with cupcakes and blueberry muffins.   He is stunned and scared.  He bolts for the door but my aim is lethal – before he escapes, his lovely pinstripe suit is covered in blobs of pink and purple icing and blueberry stains.   My anger spent, I fall to the floor, despondent, and pick up the mess, heartsick at the mention of my love’s name and flabbergasted that anyone could be so obtuse and cruel.

Then my employee, Pamela – she answers the phone as she always does, “Patrick’s – may I help you?”    “You too!”  I scream at the top of my lungs.  Like a ninja I spring from the floor ready to gut her with my offset spatula.   “Will there be no peace for me!   Why do you torment me so?   Why do you continually rub his name in my face!!!!”    Pamela backs away from me with terror in her eyes – like she’s just encountered a grizzly bear on a woodland path.   She says, in a deliberately sing-songy voice, meant to calm me, “I just answer the phone, Sarah. That's my job”   As she speaks, she deliberately and in cautious slow motion,  makes a backwards retreat in the direction of the kitchen, not letting me out of her sight.  At the last second she turns and runs but she too is the recipient of my fury - an orange chiffon cake smacks the back of her retreating head and slithers down her back leaving a frothy peachy trail.  Heartbroken, I slump to the floor again.  “Will there be no peace for me?” I sob, scooping up handfuls of chiffon cake from the floor and stuffing it into my mouth.  “What is wrong with everyone?   Have they all gone insane?”

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Somehow this was funnier when we concocted it as we walked along the beach with Joey this morning.  We laughed until tears streamed from our eyes.   The idea of naming the bakery "Patrick’s" and then me being outraged whenever anyone says the word “Patrick” - as if it were intentional cruelty – too funny.    Or maybe Liza and I are just weird.

Angel in Love/Missing Patrick

I almost got through the day yesterday without crying.  Almost.  It was a good day for the most part.   Productive at the office, enjoying one-on-one time with Joey.  We are settling into a routine.   He and I camped ourselves at the office for eight hours and he spent the time quietly dozing or chewing on his bone at my feet, while I worked.  Periodically we took a walk around the block, even in the rain and that was lovely.

And last evening a break from him -  I felt like a mother with a night away from her baby.  As much as I love him already, it was nice to have him in someone else's care.   Madeleine took him into the city to hang with her friends with lots of admonitions from me about how to care for him (no getting him high or drunk, no people food, lots of water, not too much excitement, making sure the car windows are mostly closed, getting him home at a reasonable time, etc).   I went to my bi-monthly writing group and wrote well.   James led the prompts and our assignment was to write a perfect first sentence and then, for the rest of the evening, we wrote three pieces using that perfect sentence, each inspired from a photograph he passed around.   Being the trouble maker that I am, I warped the instructions and changed the first sentence for each of the three pieces and just continued my story.   Luckily there is no time out corner for writers who fail to follow instructions.

Here are the three pieces I wrote last night.   They are unpolished (that's the point) and each was written in the allocated 10-15 minutes.

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Piece #1
I was ten when the angel visited me for the first time.  It was on a class trip to the Badlands.  Badlands for a bad girl - a perfect destination for the class floozy.  At age ten, I already had my period and a B cup.  The boys were buzzing around me, hopeful to cop a feel.  That was the year I learned to sew and the year hip hugger bellbottoms made their appearance.  I dressed the part of a bad ass girl with my pants barely covering my pubic bone and a red see-through shirt over a black lacy bra.

Jonah and I broke away from the group, ignoring the warnings of the group's tour guide.  Slyly we slipped into a cave, thick with bat guano, aquiver with the furry, upside down, sleeping critters who seemed to whisper in their sleep.   The cave vibrated.  Repulsed we dove deeper into the cave in the hope that we could find a spot free of guano where we could lay together and explore each other's bodies.

Soon we were lost, irretrievably lost, in the inky darkness.  We were no longer amorous prepubescents.  We clung to each other.  We cried for our mommies.  I think I lay down, eyes closed and sucked my thumb.  Jonah tried to nuzzle me.  I kicked him - it was his horny fault we were in this predicament.

Willing myself alive, I sprang to my feet and lurched through the darkness, arms outstretched before me, feeling my way through cave passages.  Then it happened.  My hands touched him...he was stock still waiting for me..calm, waiting for my fingers to discover him.  He put his arms around me.  I thought he was the tour guide.  But then I felt his feathered wings - huge wings that draped his nakedness like a blanket.  He pulled me to him, tucked me under one of the wings and led me from the cave.

"Jonah," I said..."what about Jonah?"

"He wasn't intended to live," the angel replied.  "You were."

Piece #2
I was twenty when the angel visited me for the second time.  I was home alone, house sitting an old Victorian lady home, owned by my anthropology professor, Sy, who was on a sabbatical dig in Tunisia.  I had just broken up with my boyfriend Jonah.  I listlessly ignored the sirens that warned me to the basement, not really caring if I lived or died.

Sitting on the edge of the queen-sized bed in Sy's bedroom, I watched the 100+ year old elm tree dance like a sapling in the 75 MPH winds.  It was fascinating - would it hold?  And if the tree, that had survived this long, finally snapped, how would it fall?  On the house?

Lightening cracked open the sky, followed by thunder that boomed through my body.  I closed my eyes and for the first time felt fear.  Maybe I did want to live after all.  Maybe I should get my ass to the basement.   Then another crack of light and a crash followed by the shriek of the tree splitting down the middle.

I watched, absolutely frozen, at the tree, which, as if in slow motion, listed and slowly fell.  I watched in fascinated horror as it fell toward the house and me.  I did nothing.  I just watched the danger approach.

When I came to, he was there.  He held my face in his baby-soft hands.  His lips brushed mine, as soft as a whisper.  "I thought I had lost you this time," he said.  A single tear wet his white eyelashes.

"I remember you...you are real after all.  Why did you come back?"

"You belong to me," he whispered.  "I  am always near."   He pulled me from the tree branch that had crashed into and penetrated the house.

"I have to leave you now - but first one question," he said looking mournfully into my eyes.

"What?" I asked.

"Why do you keep falling for guys named Jonah?"

Piece #3
I was thirty when the angel visited me for the last time.  The pregnancy had been difficult.  Jonah and I had tried for five years and finally with the help of in vitro, we had conceived.  There would be no hospital birth for me and my baby.  I had found a pregnancy wellness spa in Puerto Rico, on the outskirts of the El Junque rain forest   The owner, Myrna, called herself a witch doctor  She had purchased the little piece of land that abutted up to a beautiful waterfall.  Through Internet marketing she attracted starry-eyed, alternative mothers-to-be like me who wanted their babies to be grounded in nature from their first cry.

Next to the waterfall was a natural shallow pool.  The water was warmed by the sun to the perfect birthing temperature.  Myrna had built a birthing stool from smooth stones she hauled from the falls.  All was going well.  I labored for eighteen hours and periodically, Myrna dove beneath the water and examined my progress, holding up fingers to let me know how many centimeters I was dilated.  When she held up ten fingers it was time for me to push.  Something slipped inside of me and lurched - then stillness.  I knew my baby was in trouble.

"Shit, shit!!" yelled Myrna.  "What's going on here?"  I looked down - the water was dark crimson,the color of liver blood.  The air shimmered, the light grew dimmer, my limbs grew cold.  Myrna ran to the house for help.

I prayed for him...."Help me," I pleaded.  "Help my baby...please come again.  You said you are always near."

I opened my eyes.  He was there, whiter than ever.  He gently spread my legs.  The crimson water stained the white wings that drooped into the bloody pool.   Grimly he helped the baby out.  It was lifeless and almost black.  I howled.  Then I watched as the angel leaned over the lifeless thing and began to lick it like a mother cat licks her newborn kittens, not missing  a single spot.  The baby stirred and pinked.  It was then I noticed the tiny little wings sprouting from its shoulders.

"It's yours!" I gasped.  "How?"

"I am always near," he said, smiling.  "Sometimes I am very near."

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Every Wednesday for the past few months, after we write we hang out at the Hotel Orrington.  Patrick calls me and I excuse myself and find a quiet spot to talk with him.   I read him what I wrote that night - often about him and us. He is always astounded...he hangs on every word.   Last night I knew, for the first time,  there would be no call from him.   I also knew he was feeling the loss too, knowing it was my writing night, wishing we were still connected.   And so I cried a little bit, discreetly.  Missing him so much.

And is it OK to tell you, my friends, just how much I miss him and why?   I won't bore you again with this but I need to talk about it.   It just feels wrong, like the universe is shrieking in pain to have two hearts ripped asunder.  The loss is terrible.   I miss feeling tiny in his arms.  I miss the way he held my chin while he kissed me over and over and over again.   I miss his gravely voice and his hearty laugh.   I miss his wit and fine mind. I miss how he lorded over me when he won at games and my fake sulking.   I miss that he could never be near me without touching me, whether it was a hand on my thigh as we drove or an arm around me as we took in a show, absently stroking me, or a hand extended across the dinner table, searching for mine.   I miss the way he smells, and his manly looks.   I miss his 20" upper arms and his legs, each the size of a small child. I miss his hairy chest that I would run my fingers through.   I miss his adoration when I sang just for him, our eyes locked to the exclusion of everyone else.    I miss the sex - a lot.  I miss talking to him about business, his and mine.   I miss reading to him amazing passages from a book and having him appreciate the beauty of the English language as I do.   Oh.....I miss him so much!!!    There I've said it.   I won't belabor the point in this blog.

Several weeks ago when we were still talking I wrote this paragraph in a larger piece I wrote.   It captures perfectly how I feel.

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Love is an awe inspiring power.  Two hearts cleave to each other and start to beat as one, sympathetic beats in time.  Two bodies, move as one, in time.  Two breaths are shared, his out, hers in.  Limbs entwine, where his end, hers begin, physical boundaries dissolve.

And when it ends, the hearts and bodies are cleaved in the opposite way, as with a butcher knife.  Two hearts, ripped from each other, two breaths independent once more.  Limbs unravel.  Separation.  The hearts and bodies mourn their other.

Dog Pens, Doors and Boundaries

Closed doors, open windows, dog pens and crates, firm and porous boundaries - all worth discussing and thinking about.   I'm crate training Joey - it's as hard for me as it is for him - so much has gotten stirred up.  It's necessary to give him firm boundaries, secure boundaries.  And if I do this right, he will come to love his crate as a place of refuge.  But now, he weeps when I leave the room, even for a moment.   His weeping breaks my heart - it's heart wrenching sobbing coupled with pitiful little barks and scrabbling at the cage to get out.   When he does this, I want to run to him and let him out and hold him in my arms and tell him I'll always be there for him - I'll never leave him.   But I can't do that.  If I go to him when he is in distress, it will teach him that crying and barking are an effective way to get comfort.  So, I sit in the other room and wait it out.   As soon as he settles down (and he does) I reenter the room and tell him what a good, brave boy he is and how proud I am of him.

When I was a child there were either no boundaries or very sad and scary ones.   When I was two and my brother was born, I was put in the care of my older siblings, age 6 and 9.   My sister tells me they resented having to watch me and mostly they didn't.  So I wandered the large property, with no clothes on and was found by motorists on several occasions crossing the street in front of the house.   My mother, in exasperation, had a friend build a pen for me outside, attached to the house.   It is my earliest memory, being confined in the equivalent of a dog pen, crying for my brother, sister and their friends to let me out as they taunted and laughed at me.   It was a horrible thing to do to a baby.   Finally my mother realized her mistake and abandoned the idea of keeping me in an outdoor pen, but the damage was done.

So I hate closed doors and confined spaces.  Much of my therapy has been about me pounding on doors that were or are closed to me, or standing wistfully in doorways, looking in, wishing to be invited.  Doors are boundaries.   Children pound on the marital door wanting to know what is happening on the other side, furious to be excluded.  Kids that breach that boundary, literally or figuratively, get screwed up.  Some closed doors are critical to growth.  Having said that, I've never met a closed door I didn't try to kick in.

Patrick closed a door.  He said, "no".   I am weeping on the other side, pounding and pounding.   He is mostly silent which is as it should be.    I have created this blog to keep a peephole open, an small open window in the door.   I am very clever when I'm told no.   I've spent my lifetime getting around "no's".

Boundaries - some are hard and firm and obvious, others are flimsy and fragile and not always easy to see the edges of.  There is the boundary between love and obsession, the boundary between creativity and insanity, the boundary between wellness and decay, the boundaries between lovers whose bodies have been fused but who must still maintain their autonomy.   As I follow the bubbles to the surface of the water, I will encounter the boundary between the depths and the light of the open air.   That's a fragile boundary of wellness because there is life on either side of the surface.   Dip below the water, you can hold your breath, you can still see light, but you can't survive there for long.  Fight your way to the top, breathe the fresh air, but know how easy it is to slip back.

It's the little things we do every day to take care of ourselves that keep us above the surface, that keep us on the right side of the sanity/cuckoo boundary.   Sleeping enough, feeding ourselves properly, tending our environment, taking care of our bodies, reaching out to friends, doing honest work - all of these things must be done.   Every day, one foot in front of the other.  Dieting, taking calcium, flossing, exercising, doing laundry, tidying the house, reading, talking to loved ones, opening bills, making long term plans, looking pretty, singing, laughing even when your heart is broken, writing in a blog.  And then the next day, doing it all over again.

Yesterday I screwed up.   I texted him.  It was selfish and cruel.   He is struggling too and it has to hurt and worry him to see me pounding at the closed door.   He must have had to walk into the next room and close his ears to the sobbing, knowing he was doing the right thing to ignore me, even though his heart was breaking for me.  And unlike me with Joey, he won't be reentering the room anytime soon to tell me that I am a good and brave girl once I settle down.   I will have to comfort myself.

Chaos and Sense and Sensibility

I survived yesterday and today I'm on Day #2 of my recovery.   It was a day full of chaos primarily due to Joey, the new yellow lab who has invaded our home and is knocking at the door of our hearts.   Chaos.  I have a love/hate relationship with it.   There are two Sarahs:  the one who craves and needs order.  The Sarah who hates a dirty dish in the sink and who folds towels in precise thirds and doesn't understand why everyone doesn't do the same.  I love a serene vista and my coffee table is at its happiest state when there are treasured objects arranged just so, the glass top free of prints and rings and books that beckon to be read, stacked strategically in order of desirability and size.   But there is also the Sarah who has lived her life with layers upon layers of responsibility, stress and runaway chaos.  And when my life starts to hum predictably is when it's time to add another stressful element (a new child, more animals, a huge holiday undertaking, canning thousands of jars of fruit, a Frisbie reunion two years in the making, a new hobby that consumes me).

But chaos yesterday was a good thing.   The house was trashed with take-out chinese food, dishes everywhere, all three daughters ran in and out, there was a friend with his dog, dogs running crazy through the house and zipping in circles in the yard, ripping up my carefully tended lawn (oh, well, what was I tending it for, if not to be used?)   There were trips to the store to get dog supplies and return trips to exchange things that didn't work.  There were smiles and laughter along with dog poop everywhere.    I surrendered to the chaos, knowing I could clean today - I enjoyed seeing my family happy.

Joey.   I named him after my dead Frisbie father (the one of my three fathers who loved me) and also after Patrick.   I was going to name him Patrick but the middle, always-wise daughter threatened to tell the shelter people that I had once hit the previous dog, Merlin with a hair brush if I named him Patrick.   Joseph is Patrick's middle name - that was my compromise.   Probably a better choice - Patrick would be a weird dog's name.

Joey and I are a mess together.   It's fitting that I should get a dog with issues similar to mine.   We don't look alike but beneath our skin, we resonate.   He is a yellow lab mix (not sure what the mix is).   He is eight months old, so still a puppy.  He has scars from being beaten (I carry emotional scars from being beaten as a child).   He has severe attachment disorder and can't handle being left, even for a minute (me too).   He has no boundaries - he spills out of his skin, mouthing, jumping, pooping everywhere, licking, loving, biting clothing, running after cats.   Doesn't he sound like me?   I don't poop all over the house but I'm all over the place, loving too fiercely, jumping on people critically when things anger me, revealing every thought that comes into my mind without a filter, and always nervous when people walk away from me, even if it's just for a bit.   Appropriateness.   Joey and I will work on being appropriate.   I will read Jane Austen to him every night.   Currently we're reading Sense and Sensibility.   He and I cringe at the description of Maryanne who indulged her every heightened emotion to the exclusion of having sense.   She lived her life at the extremes and made some very poor choices.    There is valor in managing oneself to the center, eschewing violent extremes.   It takes, I think, habit and discipline.  Joey and I will work on being more like Elinor, Maryanne's older more sensible sister.  I like that Joey is literary,  it's something else we share.

He will be a solid citizen and a happy dog - I am sure of it.   He is eager to please which is 9/10ths of the equation - the rest will come.    I am going to give him structure, discipline, tons of love and lots of time.   He will heal in time.   We will both heal together - we will be well together.  As I write this, he is at the office with me.   He is settled down, sleeping at my feet, his head propped on my foot.   Joey is happy, I think, for the first time in a long time.

I'm glad I didn't name him Patrick.  Thanks Elizabeth

Blogging vs. Anti-depressants?

Liza says I should go on anti-depressants, take Chinese herbs or go to her accupuncturist - she says this hurt has gone too deep - she is worried that I won't be able to pull myself back to life.   I said, "Let's give it a week.   I will write a blog.  I will write my ass off with the the thought that by getting these feelings out of my gut and onto the page, I can find some measure of relief - like vomitting."

And I will give Patrick the link to this blog.   He can choose whether or not to follow my progress.   I will imagine that he will stay connected in this way, checking in on me from time to time, with still tender and loving feelings for me.   I don't want to be cruel to him by making it all about my loss.   He is suffering too, holed up in his man cave, waiting for the heartache to subside so that he can venture out into the world again and a new relationship.   If I were stronger I could do this 100% break and not need to feel connected to him.    We would be totally decoupled and eventually whole again.  But I am not strong - me, Sarah "the hero" - that is what he calls me because I have lived my life cholerically, forging pathways, never looking back, results oriented, strong and optimistic, taking care of everything and everyone.   I am no longer strong.

So this is new - this falling apart thing.   To be broken hearted is to be broken - shattered.  This blog will witness my recovery.   It will chronicle the baby steps I will take to get back.   I suspect this won't be easy, getting over him.   Everything I do, I do passionately and completely.   I fell in love so deeply that I now find myself at the very bottom of the ocean, unsure which way leads back to the surface, holding my breath, not sure that I will ever see the sun again.   I could perish here, sitting at the bottom with bubbles escaping from my lips.  Today, a baby step.   I will sit quietly and watch the bubbles and note which way they travel - that is up.  Once I determine "up", I will make my next move.

Everything hinges on me being able to recover from this.    If I don't fully recover, I will never love romantically again, I will be one of the perpetually disappointed who just go through the motions of living, and I will stand no chance of a reconciliation with Patrick.  I will fade away.

So how did it happen that my child is smarter and wiser than me?   Elizabeth.   I told her I told Patrick that if he came back to me, he had to be 100% certain that it would be forever, because I could never withstand this pain again.   He agreed.   She said, "Seriously?   If he came back to you, you would marry him, just like that?    That's not right.   You only knew him for two months.   You and he never got through the honeymoon stage.   You don't know him well enough to jump to that kind of commitment."    That's when I realized she was right.    My reaction and request were unrealistic and imprudent.   It was bizarre of me to tell him to come back on bended knee or not at all.    I guess the pain of losing him was/is so great that I couldn't imagine risking my heart to him again with potentially the same outcome.   He is my first love and I have no confidence that one can actually recover from something like this, never mind do it again.   But normal people fall in love, break up, fall in love again, break up, over and over and they DO go on to love again - they DO recover.   They KNOW they can withstand the pain if the risk is worth it.    So a normal person would have said, "Don't come back to me unless you really want to try to make it work.   Don't come back just because you're lonely, or miss me.   Come back to me if you think it could work, if your head is in a different place and you think we might be able to get it right this time."   And then we would give it a shot, pick up where we left off, and get to know each other better before making such a monumental decision to be life partners.  And it might not work, in which case we would break up again...and I would survive because that is what people do. 

For there to be even the possibility of a reconciliation, we both have work to do that could (ironically) spoil any possibility of a future relationship - the work that could bring us back to each other is also the same work that is more likely to estrange us permanently.   That is the risk, but it's the only path.  My work is to acquire the skill of breaking up and reclaiming myself.   If I can't do this - if I can't heal my heart, then my original statement was correct - "I will not be able to withstand this again".   And if I can't heal my heart, then I will never love again because I will be stuck in time, my heart life will have ended on June 15, 2011.    But if I can survive this once, I can survive it again, and again, each time recovering with less heartache.  And if I know I can be OK without him, then I can risk a second chance with Patrick, knowing there are no guarantees in love.

His work is reclaiming his heart and getting back out there, looking for his heart's desire.    He needs to give his dream its due and find someone who will love him as much as I do but also give him the things he needs that I can't.   He owes it to himself to try and find this.   If he doesn't take this path he will always be restless.   The selfless part of me hopes, upon hope that his every wish comes true, just as he envisions.   But, in equal measure, I also hope for a miracle in my favor - for him to search and not find someone who touches him the way I do - eventually making his way back to me with peace in his heart  - that, in me, he found his holy grail, his soulmate - he just wasn't sure the first time.

So, Sarah....work to do.    Keep writing everything in your heart but don't put Patrick on a pedestal.   Remind yourself every day that while he is wonderful, there are other wonderful people out there.   Get your affairs in order, let the separation take root, attend to family and friends, spend time with your new dog and make him a great companion.    Don't date yet....that is a disaster while your heart is still so committed.    Just heal.