belching in public

apparently is an endearing activity in a woman. what will he do when he finds out I can spit and repair plumbing?

post-divorce relationship–if that’s actually what it is, of course it is, has it been a couple of months now? he is different: older, with kids, separated, divorce-in-process. don’t let it mean too much? just enjoy it for what it is? but what is it, exactly?

it is what it is. connection. fun. interesting. good sex (yahoo!). a distraction? great food. an education. a challenge. nice. healing.

it’s good to heal and move along.

Post

Divorce, that is. 15 minutes in court, one more form in triplicate, and it’s done. I’m divorced. Husband declined to attend the hearing and decided not to submit a financial statement, which made the morning so much easier as I didn’t have to hold his hand through it all. And there lies the point of this entire endeavor.

And now, after maybe 5 years of chopping and swinging a machete wildly to clear enough space to see, I stand surrounded by dead branches and broken twigs, dripping sweat as leaves still make their way to the ground. And I still can’t see. But at least I can stop hacking away for a while and catch my breath. Time to relax, listen, and figure out what to do next.

The Date

Not a date date, but a court date. Finally. This week. Convenient to end a year and end a marriage at the same time.

Grief, happiness, confusion, loss, relief all happening too. And hope, that darned hope that won’t go away despite all attempts to live in the present. Looking forward to the new country of post-divorce, hopeful that it will be a better place, where I fit. And of course a place where I can think beyond my own head. It will be nice to move beyond the narrow emotional space of surviving.

And a date date would be nice, could be interesting. Am I ready? Maybe I should get through the divorce first. That’s enough to keep me busy this week. I’ll think about dating next year

Reading Buddhists

I’ve been reading Pema Chodron, an abbot at a Buddhist monastery in Nova Scotia. Her book When Things Fall Apart has been very useful, not only for my healing process, but what I call my dealing process–just getting through the day to day. The book may not seem to be the most uplifting reading at first glance, but it is proving to be worth the challenge. For example, the next chapter up is called “Six Kinds of Loneliness.” Kinda gotta get geared up to tackle that one.

The other morning for breakfast was a chapter titled “Hopelessness and Death,” a cheerful way to start the day, no? It’s still causing my brain to twist, in a good way, about the idea of hope and recognizing that it comes out of lacking, missing, need. At its source hope is always wishing for something other than what we have. So the idea is to get to a state of complete hopelessness, to be with out hope, which would mean that you are with the moment, experiencing what is real rather than what is desired.

I have some issues with this. Hope is an important concept these days, not one to be tossed away lightly. It has also been very motivating for me throughout my life, and having it has allowed me to create and move forward. But, on solely an emotional level, I see that it would be healthier for me to focus on what I have, rather than what I don’t have. Doing that has cleared my head a bit (for today at least!).

For example I’ve been obsessing over men I’ve recently met. They are not my friends, not really, not yet. They’re just guys that have come into my life. I keep trying to use them to fill in something that’s missing, the role my husband used to play? But there really isn’t anything missing. I’m OK on my own, maybe a little sad and lonely, but pretty much OK. And if these acquaintances want to be my friends, then those friendships will develop, but they need to grow naturally, not forced out of my desperation.

The other helpful buddhist read lately is Thich Nhat Hanh, a monk. In a chapter called Aimlessness he says “don’t just do something, sit there.” I laughed out loud when I read this. I try so hard, too hard, so often. All out of desperation. Sometimes it IS better to relax with it, sit back, and let things happen. Most often it is NOTHING that happens, but that can be a good thing too. Much less stressful.

Of course this is all built on top of the foundation of compassion towards self, an attempt to forgive myself and not judge. It’s ok to feel desperate, lonely, and dysfunctional. There’s nothing wrong, that’s just how I am right now.

Anyway, a cliff’s notes version of what’s rolling around in my head. It’s been useful to clear out some of the frantic energy, the emotional debris. Although that may have been replaced with a more serious depression, so I don’t know which is better.

Marriage from the Outside

Although not completely outside of marriage, I am existing much closer to the border these days. Within a few months I should be a foreigner, single again, or is divorced a different state than single? Whatever my nationality, it is definitely outside of married, which gives a strange perspective to those marriages that are close to me.

For example, at a recent party for my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary, I had the painfully difficult experience of being the only solo (unattached? single?) adult present. No husband, as that would have been weird we are in the midst of divorce, and not really a good party for a date, as I am still married. Plus I was reminded that my siblings will soon celebrate 25, 20, and 7 years of married life (OK, the 7 is a second time around). I am pleased for them all, parents, brothers and sister, happy for the longevity of their commitments. But I was shattered at the same time. My own marriage lasted 10 years, no small feat. But no one acknowledged the accomplishment of my marriage, the one that is broken. Marriages are only celebrated while they still function. Despite the continued friendship that exists between my husband and I, the longevity of our marriage is irrelevant, and it makes our ending disturbing for everyone close to us.

Then it was off to an interesting visit with an old friend in SF. It was great to see her. She hasn’t changed at all really, just aged a bit (haven’t we all). Her husband is kind of quiet, but I only saw him one night at dinner, so all I know of him is from her complaints. Next time I see her I’ll insist she say good things so there will be a chance I will like him. The thing that gets me is that she’s been a vegetarian for over 25 years, and he’s a guy who “doesn’t like vegetables.” Like, how does that work? He refuses to go to her favorite restaurant–holy shit, an awesome vegan place on Geary and Jones called Millenium, pricey but out of this world fantastic. And yet she will go to his favorite steakhouse on his birthday and actually claim to like it–apparently there are excellent side dishes at Ruth’s Chris. My response is “huh?” Is this what we do for love? Or companionship? Or to avoid what I’m experiencing these days? Guess I’m not in the best place to hear complaints of other people’s marriages. I’m leaving that country. Don’t know why anyone would stay if it’s so bad.

And then there are the good marriages. The ones that give me hope and break my heart at the same time. Cat-sitting for a co-worker and his wife, seeing their beautiful home, their shared spaces, the evidence of their happiness. How can I not feel an overwhelming sense of failure when I walk into their house? All the things my husband and I could not do, did not do. Of course what I don’t see is just as important as what’s visible. But I’m not planning to search their closets. I prefer to keep my illusion of their happiness intact, because despite the difficulties it uncovers in me, it also makes clear that other options exist. There are possibilities beyond my experience. Thank god.

I look forward to crossing the border, to becoming an alien, a foreigner again to married life. I don’t know what I’ll call myself–single, divorced, solo. But whatever it turns out to be, I’m looking forward to the journey. I’ll be truly happy to get on with it.

Praying for a Guru

The paperwork is filed. Divorce is on it’s slow, indirect, pokey way. My soon-to-be-Ex returned the papers, all filled out, within a week of receiving them. I was so shocked at the quick turn around I had to get them out of my hands and filed them the next day. I completely turned my head inside out in the process.

Do people actually celebrate after filing for divorce? It’s what I imagined I would do. Nice lunch, glass of wine, flirty waiter. Instead I left work abruptly, came home, and laid on the couch for 6 hours. There might have been beer involved, but definitely no flirting. I basically freaked out. My anxiety was completely unexpected.

It has to do with the split in my life, the chasm, the emotional freefall that has accompanied leaving my husband in a place where I have no support network. No one to catch me, hold me, comfort me, help me close what feels like a torn apart, gaping chest wound. The bleeding heart, the darkness of depression, the ugly process of ending a marriage.

This is where the divorce gurus come in. They reassure me that I will feel better. They tell me that it’s OK for me not to be ready to date yet, but that I will be someday. They acknowledge the confusion, accept it as normal, suggest it will recede. They start to heal the torn heart, they calm the splitting head, they put the feet back on the ground. Everyone needs a guru. Or two.

So now I wait for the state to determine a date for my marriage to be over. I wait for a judge who doesn’t know me to decide if I can keep my house or if it has to be sold to split its meager value with my husband. I wait for the time that I can hand over the wedding ring that belonged to his family. And I talk to my gurus. They are the only clear path that I can find.

Place

Driving desperately to the boat that will carry me

rock me, sleeping in the sun

to an old place made new.

Orchards with apples red, heavy branches,

fields green and rolling.

Wind through trees

hair in my face as I climb

then look down

at waves and sand and water west to the horizon.

Take me back to Heart’s Desire

where we swam with jellyfish

in great white breeding grounds

Zen gardens by the sea.

History cut, snapped

Blood stopped, body fractured

Mind undone.

This is my state.

On the border

My borders are so open these days. So many needs, so much emotion, the fences and high walls can’t hold it all back. The guards work overtime but it still climbs over, pours through, wanders the barrenness, or gets caught and corralled and sent back home, only to run again tomorrow. There is no control, just the knowledge that the border should be policed. Should be, normally would be, but now there is only an attempt at basic maintenance of a daily routine.

Sometimes though, on random days, less desperation slips through. I don’t know why. Maybe the guards are more fully staffed, the equipment all cleaned and in working order. Or maybe the anxiety that presses against the fence is less than usual, calmed, resting, on holiday. Could it really be because of the increased border patrol, at the ready? Or is the need actually lessened, better managed in its native land?

Can we look through the fence to see what is there, to identify the cause of the anxious refugee tide? Could there be fewer guards by lessening the need for the migration? By addressing the poverty and desperation at its source? By understanding the problem, and by dealing with it?

No wave crashing at the checkpoints, climbing the wall, becoming entangled on the barbed wire and caught on the shards of glass that crown the barriers. No fortified perimeter, no guards, no fear, no terror. Just a border that functions as the abstract boundary that it is, between here and there, in and out, a line in the desert.

My borders are so open these days.

Great expectations

I can blame it on my maternal grandmother. After drinking whiskey she would get into fights, all 5 feet and 100 lbs of her, pummeling drunk men at the bar. Really, what else would make such a tiny woman use her fists on men twice her size? The connection is in my DNA, whiskey and anger, intertwined, in between near-sightedness and high blood pressure. What else, other than the whiskey, would have made me such a bitch today?

It couldn’t have been my crush (my crutch?). So nice to him with no response other than workplace flirting. No true interest, just light, casual interactions. Nice but it’s going nowhere. And wow do I need more.

Great expectations. More like fantasy. The complete confusion of relating to other individual humans. We put out the effort, work hard, do all the right things. In our work we are rewarded, good grades, promotions, pay. But in our relationships we think, we analyze, we try to do well. Instead of success, really connecting with people, we are left empty. No reward, no prize, no A+. No grade at all, just a big old question mark taking the place of the fantasy that was supposed to take on flesh.

So do we learn from the experience? Pick ourselves up, dust off the sparkly shoes, move along? Or just sit dumbfounded, staring at the damn question mark and saying “what the fuck?”

My grandmother was never silenced, never hesitant, never confused. Maybe that’s the generational difference. Rather than saying “what the fuck?,” she fought back, she pounded her fists, she screamed back at life: “fuck you!”

Breaking the rock

PD: post-divorce. Well, not really, as I haven’t even filed yet. So PSPD: Post separation, pre-divorce. I have the papers filled out. But today I talked with my soon-to-be-Ex and he floated the idea of getting back together. Our conversation didn’t last very long after that. Maybe it was a bit insensitive to mention the paperwork that sits waiting on my table?

Which of course makes me ask: what am I waiting for? For him to get it together enough to deal with the divorce. He needs a job, an address, some stability so I don’t have to keep holding his hand. What would happen if I let go?

This is my state: in flux, changing, breaking, on the edge, constantly anxious, newness. It’s like smashing a geode onto the ground and cracking it open–exciting, destructive, sharp, terrifying, hopeful. What beauty will be found inside? It’s fair to say that sharing such an experience is impossible, although it is reassuring to hear from other people in similar states, in transition, moving through crisis.