Anger Management

I've never thought of myself as a particularly angry person. I can certainly be irritable and, one might say, "pissy." A lot of those times overlap with hormonal cycles, but don't you dare suggest that because that is solely my observation to make.

There are a number of times, though, when I look back in on my life, that I have become temporarily almost blinded with a rush of anger I felt powerless to fight, and my reactions seemed to be involuntary and unstoppable. I believe I remember each and every one of them in stark detail, and they do not represent my finest moments. However, when I look back on them, I can see that they were often just an outlet for a build-up of grief or stress or, in at least one case, physical pain.

I also see that I really could have benefited from mental health intervention, or talk therapy, pretty early in life. It might have made me realize that talking to people about the shame I felt concerning my weight, or the irrational fears I had, would have been a good deal.

Instead, I mostly always just let things pile up on the inside, often failing even to pinpoint exactly what I was feeling from one moment to the next, because doing so would make me feel weak or ashamed.

Anyway, NOW I'm ashamed at the outbursts that ended up happening, and yesterday, for the first time ever, I just let that feeling of "fight or flight" buzz in my chest all night, knowing that when I woke up this morning, my body would have "reset" and I would be fine. And I am.

But because I want people to know that I understand it's likely I should be clinically diagnosed -- and I'm NOT being flippant here; I do believe I have undiagnosed mental and/or mood disorder(s) that, had I been aware of in my early adulthood, probably would have made life easier for myself and those living around me -- I'm going to list every incident where I've given in to this hostile take-over of fury, and, if I know the cause, I'll pinpoint that, too. I don't understand all of them.

1) The earliest one I can remember is when I was a junior in high school (so 1988 or 1989). I was "dating" (he couldn't drive and we couldn't go anywhere alone because of that) a kid who had a best friend who was a girl. I straight-up hated how connected they were. Anyway, I'd seen her making out with her boyfriend once, and she'd asked me not to tell the guy I was seeing because she thought it reflected poorly on her, like she was some kind of slut. The whole situation is so very Disney middle school drama. Anyway, there was an ill-advised (for me, because I require nightly sleep) lock-in at our church, and I was bummed because he was spending so much time at the bowling alley with her, talking to her, blah blah. Phil Collins's "Groovy Kind of Love" came on the PA and I hid in the bathroom crying. The girl came in there to check on me and was talking about how great this guy was, ending with, "Aren't we lucky to have him?" Ugh. Cut to Monday at school... she didn't go to our school, and I was just tired and grumpy from the weekend. The guy approached me first thing, wanting me to like apologize to her or something for being distant. He said, "She's trying to be your friend, really she is." That's when my lizard brain took over. I think I yelled something like, "No, she's no!" and walked away, slamming my fist into the cinder-block wall on the outside of the library. Dumb. Juvenile. I think this was just anger at the insecurities that proximity to someone I viewed as "better" than me stirred, and her extremely close relationship with a guy I liked. She ended up being the "best man" in his wedding.

2) The next one was on the eve of my first wedding, so this would have been early August 1992. After the rehearsal, a bunch of us went to my friend's boyfriend's apartment to play "How to Be a Complete Bastard," a ridiculous game we'd acquired at Crazy Eddie's, the one place in Fort Smith where you could buy sex toys and crude merchandise such as this. It was a fun game, until one of the truth/dare things involved my affianced letting a girlfriend of mine shave one square inch of hair off of his fairly hairy leg. Of course, you can't shave one inch; no razor is that small. It was a fair patch. I'm not 100% sure why this made me so angry, I had a melt-down. I think I told him it looked stupid and we were about to go on our honeymoon so it would show on the pictures, but that's ridiculous. I think it was maybe just the stress of getting married, even though it's what I really wanted at the time. Also, I was probably a little jealous of the boldness of someone shaving another person's body to win a game, because I was competitive but I don't think I could shave someone else. Good thing I'm not a nurse.

3) Around 1995, I was working at Sam's Club and I don't even remember what lead up to this, but I do remember walking into the freezer, throwing my gloves into the air, and swearing for the first time in my life. That was just a bad situation. Poorly-run store, my marriage was falling apart, my co-worker was disgusting and inappropriate and attempts to report his sexually inappropriate discussions to management resulted in my younger-than-me area manager telling him, in front of me, that he needed to knock it off because I was getting him (the manager) in trouble. And the store manager told me and another co-worker that our complaints were creating a division that was just as bad as the guy who was sitting in the cooler, letting the milk run out of the higher shelves so that women would have to lean down to reach the bottom shelf and he could look down their blouses.

4) In the late summer of 1998, I met my then-husband's parents for the first time. They'd come to Las Vegas, and we'd taken them to visit The Strip. My husband was parking in a garage I frequented, and I was trying to direct him to the spots that would require his elderly parents the least walking, since we already had a fair hike in front of us. He was snippy and basically told me to shut up. We'd only been married for about five months, but there were aspects of his personality that I had not seen before we got married that had been increasingly problematic. (We got into a fight on our "honeymoon" in Montreal and I don't remember what it was about, but do remember his saying, "You've always been insecure about your weight." It was a complete non-sequitur but weight would become his go-to... then my extra-marital sex-craziness. But that's another story for another time.)

Anyway, THIS time, I demanded he stop and let me out of the car. Yeah, his parents were in the car. I exited with a, "Don't you EVER yell at me again!" and walked into the casino, through it, and out onto the street. His mom caught up with me about half an hour later, and I did not have a plan. I just needed space and to get the energy out of my body. I could have walked home. We lived pretty close.

5) June 2002. We were on a "respite break" from Boys Town. It was super stressful, and we took an emergency last-minute long weekend off to relax. It might have been mandatory. Anyway, we'd decided to go camping at this neat place just over the border of Nevada into Utah, and it was a cool place. They had hot springs that came out from the side of a cliff, and had put a bunch of claw-foot bathtubs on a landing to collect the water. It would then overflow out of them and into a pool below. The water was rust-colored, like the rocks. D was about seven months old. Kaley the greyhound was with us.

Can you tell where we were was significantly cooler than Las Vegas in June? Yeah. It was. So, when we went to bed that night, it just kept getting cooler and then cold. No one slept much. By about 3 AM, we went to the car to sleep with the heater on.

At first daylight, when it was time to pack up and go, I don't know why the responsibility for taking the tend down fell to me. But it did. Maybe because it was my sister's tent, and I'm the one who had set it up? Anyway... in the cold half-light, every time the chilly metal poles knocked against my frozen fingers, I could feel it building up: Why am I doing this alone? (Because a baby's in the car, maybe?) Why did we waste one precious free night we had doing this instead of just hanging out somewhere easy? Plus all of the stress of knowing we'd have to go back into that house of six boys who did not like us and were products of their environments so far but for which we were constantly held responsible, as their current foster parents. It seemed like I'd bitten of a lot more than I could chew, especially as they'd hired us when I was pregnant and we started when D was 2 months old and I was still fully in the throes of postpartum depression. Anyway, I just screamed. No one was camping but us, and I yellllllled. I hollered, "I THOUGHT CAMPING WAS SUPPOSED TO BE FUN!" Then I got the tent folded up and realized that the lantern was still hanging on the interior. That would have to wait until later. I'd lost it.

6) Early 2003. We'd been asked to resign from Boys Town, had spent 3 months holing up in a friend's house in Spokane, WA, then lived with my parents for 2 months while we got rid of our renter so we could move back into our house. THEN D and I went to visit my grandparents in Texas. THEN our whole family went to visit D's grandparents in Montgomery, Alabama. Whew. So we were finally home and settled in, and I decided to take D to one of my favorite places, Floyd Lamb Park.

This was quite idyllic, but at some point... my keys were gone. I looked everywhere for them before walking to the ranger's shack to ask to use the phone. I called home, and no one answered. I left a voice mail that said something like, "I have a bit of an emergency so I'm going to call back in a couple of minutes, if you could pick up the phone."

In my brain, I'd already started it... picturing my husband asleep, or even purposefully ignoring my call. I walked around for a while, came back, and called again. Nothing. I told him I was going to have to call a tow truck. Later he asked me why I didn't call a cab. Honestly, I hadn't thought of it. But also, dog.

Anyway, I called a tow truck and left to kill time while we waited. I had cracked the windows so was able to at least get into the car so Kaley could rest and D could play.

Kids never notice anything.

In another twist, when I'd told the tow truck driver that I was at Floyd Lamb in Tule Springs, for some reason, his brain went straight to "Indian Springs." He drove all the way out there before realizing that's not where Floyd Lamb is, and, duh, of course I said Tule Springs. Here's a map. The tiny blue circle is where I lived. The red outline is Tule Springs. The big blue circle is Indian Springs.

The round trip took him 3 hours, while I waited with a dog and a kid and no idea what was going on. (Nope, no cell phone.) Also, I see now that it's only 2.7 miles from the park to my house, but it felt a lot further, and my dog could barely walk a block without withering. Anyway.

When we finally got home and the tow truck driver hopped up to get into the car, the dog was so freaked out she jumped straight out from about 8 feet and landed with a screech and a roll on the asphalt before limping inside. It looked to me like she'd landed on her head, and I don't remember how the next few moments happened, but I had to have paid the tow truck driver and put D to bed.

I do remember collapsing in the living room, sobbing and screaming, "WHERE WERE YOU??!" over and over and over again. I don't really have to think too hard about where this came from. However, I was also so wrapped up in my own stuff that I hadn't realized that the messages I'd left were cryptic and didn't mention whether we'd been in a wreck, if anyone was hurt, where we were, etc.

7) Now there's a break in the break-downs, as far as I recall. It August 2011, and I had gone through a divorce and was trying to see if dating this one guy was an option. We'd gotten pretty connected, and something specific abruptly changed. It's actually taken until probably the past 3 or 4 months for me to completely shed the emotion around this one, as I realize the catalyst was a group of people comprised of men I've found over time to be laughable and regret caring what they thought and giving them power over me and as I realize that if that guy and I had gotten together, we would have been each other's worse nightmare.

But anyway, I was SO freaking mad and upset that an outside person was giving input into something that was a source of joy for the two of us involved that I could not stop crying. I yelled at the guy who gave me the news. I cried and called one of the outside people involved and yell-cried at him. I cried all afternoon, including driving to and sitting through a show my cousin's wife was putting on. I was staying with my parents that night because the show was near Dallas and we were celebrating my birthday the following afternoon.

I was talking to a friend online and she told me to wake my parents up and tell them to take me to the hospital, and to tell them I was suicidal if I needed to (I wasn't). So my mom did, and I talked to a lady, and it really was a waste of time and money but she referred me to a doctor for anti-depressants. I really should have pursued therapy at this point, too, but... I'd tried it as recommended when I was going through the divorce, and it was just laughable. It was one of those things where the counselor repeated back what I said, so when I stopped talking, so did she. And we'd just sit there for an uncomfortably long amount of time. What I needed were coping mechanisms or help seeing patterns or something. I got nothing.

But here, it makes total sense. I'd gone through a pretty acrimonious divorce, I'd lost a faith outlet that had been my home for six years, and now this was getting taken from me.

8) Almost a year later, there was another deal with this same guy, who just couldn't make a clean break with me. He had said basically that we just couldn't date, though, and he hoped I valued his friendship enough to remain friends without other expectations. That did it. D had a friend over at the RV, and I politely excused myself, then sobbed and yelled at him while I walked around the trailer park after dark. I'm lucky no one called the police, honestly.

I still had a couple of mini-FU moments with this guy before totally shutting down communication. It wasn't a healthy situation. He says he only remembers the good stuff. Nice for him.

9) In December 2012, I thought it would be fun to surprise James, who was visiting me from Dallas in Austin, with his family for his birthday. His mom, brother, sister-in-law, and sister drove out from Arizona and stayed in a nearby hotel. What I didn't realize was also happening was that the injury I'd sustained the day I moved into my RV park in Austin (slipped on standing water in the laundry room and apparently ruptured a spinal disc) had started bothering me for the first time. It would hang out for the better part of a year. But I do remember getting everyone in the car and wincing as I sat down. It was a lot of pain.

One late morning, we had gone to get James's people to go visit my sister and some wanted to go to breakfast first. Well, it was taking a lot of sitting around and chatting to decide, and I'd told my sister we'd come over, and I was so overwhelmed that I had to leave the building and go outside. I have no idea what caused it, unless it was meeting (and getting reacquainted with) my boyfriend's family for the first time?

10) On the eve of the eve of James's and my wedding, I had three of these "disconnecting" incidents. The first was, well, also when his brother and sister-in-law were in town. They get the benefit of seeing me at my finest. Anyway, it had been more than three months of constant agony with my back. I was only sleeping a few hours at a time because after that, I had to get up. I couldn't sit or lay down comfortably for any amount of time and would lie down to try to sleep until I just couldn't. I made so many hurt animal noises that one time when D asked if I was okay, I had to say, "Don't ask anymore. The answer is no. I'm never going to be okay."

We'd sat down to play a game, and it was a complicated one (Battlestar Galactica, if you're familiar). James had just read through the instructions, and everyone else had taken their first turns. It got to me, and I realized I had no idea what I was supposed to do. I didn't really understand the point of the game, but I had like 2 moves and a thing and another thing I was supposed to do on my turn, and I couldn't grasp at all what it was. I admitted I was totally lost, and I started bawling. They calmed me down, and I started playing.

A little later, I was zoning out during something and suddenly James said, "You aren't supposed to look at the cards!" he was shuffling, and of which I was totally unaware. Embarrassed at being accused of cheating? (yeah, drama) I left the room, literally threw myself on the bed, and sobbed.

Then I decided it would be a good time to go to bed, so I went to lie down with D. They were still playing the game just outside the door, I'm a light sleeper, and I was hurting so bad. I tried to stop the buzz of "fight or flight." I just wanted to sleep. My body wouldn't unwind, but was winding up instead.

Finally, I shot out of bed and stomped through the living room. "I have to go on a walk." It was about 2:00 AM. James asked, "Do you want me to go with you?" Instead of saying yes, I snarled, "What do YOU think??"

He followed me out, we got a few blocks away, and I sat on the sidewalk and sobbed. I told him that he didn't have to marry me, because I knew that I was a different person with my back injury. I was just so tired and so foggy and I couldn't keep it up.

This one makes TOTAL sense but is still super embarrassing to remember.

Also, not to spoil the story, but James married me anyway.

10) Christmas 2015. We'd gone to Arizona to -- you guessed it! -- be with James's family. We were having a great time in Flagstaff, where his brother lives. We'd gone out to a cute owl-themed restaurant. This was back in the day when Mal was just NOT able to sit through a meal. It was a leisurely one, and so toward the end, I just got up with him to let him roam while everyone else finished.

This is how James and I handled meals out when Mal was little. I don't think we'd explained that to his sister-in-law. She'd just had a baby a few days earlier, and was relieved to get out and do something. After I got up with Mal, I think a couple of other people came and meandered with him and apparently she felt rushed.

After that, James's brother wanted to show James a brewery that they love, and to give his wife an opportunity to sit and relax while she had a nice drink.

I knew that there was no way that Mal would make it through another sitting anywhere, so I stayed outside and walked around with him. At some point, James came out and asked where I was going. I hadn't planned on going anywhere, but decided I'd walk Mal downtown and we'd enjoy the shops while they had a drink.

This was taken poorly by James, who thought we were just abandoning everyone. I was just trying to make it so that Mal would be happy and James could do what he wanted to do with his family.

Anyway, we met later, and the idea was to do a pub crawl or something, so they were headed to another place to get another drink. My brain exploded a little, and I told James we'd just see him at home. They offered me a ride back to my car, but it was only a few blocks away and even though the sun was going down and it was getting cold, I was BURNING UP.

Mal and I finally got back to the car, and drove to the hotel. As I was going up the stairs to the room, I saw James heading toward the building. I guess I thought he'd changed his mind. But when he got up to the room, he'd come to grab a heavier coat or something.

I unleashed on him. "Why am I here? I'm just the babysitter! I feel like my only purpose here is to trot Mal out so your family can see him, then retreat when you're moving on to something else. I could have watched Mal while you went out and had fun at home and a lot cheaper!"

Merry Christmas, baby!

11) We're almost done. Whew. This one is... I don't get it at all. But it was in maybe 2016, some time in the spring? An incident had happened at Disney World with an alligator, and I won't mention it here but if you don't know what I'm talking about, you can Google it. A short time later, something dangerous but not fatal had happened at a zoo when a small child fell into the gorilla enclosure. Anyway, a high school friend had made a joke making light of both instances on Facebook, and I was absolutely infuriated. I think I blocked him that moment and thus ends a decades-long friendship. I like inappropriate jokes, but it was cruel and, to me, made light of a parent's loss.

12) Here's another social media one, from a few weeks ago. I'm only on Nextdoor (or I was; I'm not now) as a neighborhood lead. Someone had copied a post (they didn't edit after they pasted, so it was obvious) called "Craigslist Killers" which was a PETA expose about the horrific things people do after they acquire animals on Craigslist. It was graphic. It details a few specific incidents and the point was basically not to turn your pets over to strangers. I was repelled by it, and felt that the gruesome descriptions were unnecessary, but at least deserved a "content/trigger warning" so people like myself could avoid reading them. I reported the post, and it was removed.

A few days later, the same lady reposted and said she wasn't sure why her post had been removed. Another lead from a nearby neighborhood apologized and said there had been so much good info in the post. I responded that it had included graphic descriptions of animal violence, which I felt would disturb people, as it had me.

I didn't see the backlash until several hours. They'd both said things about how you HAVE to talk in these vivid terms or people don't listen, and after a few back-and-forths, eventually one lady surmised that the reason I was so sensitive was that I myself had likely surrendered a pet without doing due diligence, so I was feeling guilty. She added, "I have no proof of this, but it seems likely." WHAT. THE. WHAT?!

I told her she was ridiculous and to get off her high horse. I told Nextdoor to remove me as a lead. I messaged the second lead and told her that people who have had trauma can have their day/week RUINED by revisiting trauma described that gruesomely.

She wrote back a lot of stuff about being a law enforcement officer and blah blah blah whatever and that I needed to make sure my kids know all of the terrible things that can happen to THEM because that's how you love them. I didn't respond.

-----Okay, break for a minute.-----

I was listening to a podcast after this wherein they quoted G. M. Trevelyan, who said, "Anger is a momentary madness, so control your passion or it will control you."

"A momentary madness."

That made TOTAL sense to me. The madness, I mean. But it's true. It IS only momentary. And what would happen if I just decided, "I'm not reacting yet; whatever I do is a result of madness." So.

13) We were outside eating the other night, as we try to do every night during stay-home, when the weather is nice. James had run to the store while Mal and I played in the front yard. We noticed a small maybe Jack Russell terrier, and I took a picture with my camera, came inside, and posted it to Nextdoor.

One of my neighbors messaged me that she'd come get it, but by that time it had walked down the street a bit. She told me to grab it, but I didn't get that message until later, and by the time she got out, the dog was gone.

Apparently, the lady who had been one of the ones insisting that you have to detail animal abuse to stop it had said she'd come for it, but I hadn't seen the message because I muted her, which I'd told her and theater woman I was going to do so I wouldn't have to worry about reading such troubling things.

She messaged me and said, "That's what happens when you mute someone -- ME." I wrote her back that I'd forgotten about it (I had) and that I couldn't get the dog as I don't have a way to secure it: my house has cats, and my back yard isn't secure. It didn't have a collar, either, and I'm not picking up a strange dog.

She wrote back a LONG thing that I only skimmed, but it included "threw this baby out to the coyotes" and ended with "at least when I go to bed at night, I sleep well knowing that I tried to make the world a better place."

On the one hand, it was ridiculous enough to make me roll my eyes. On the other, I DON'T LIKE BEING ATTACKED. But I just deleted her messages and literally quit Nextdoor (they wouldn't let me step down as a lead until I found a replacement and NO ONE wants to do it).

I was full of that energy, that "do something!" buzzing alllll night. I knew, KNEW that when I woke up this morning, I'd be fine. But it was a long, slow burn. I kept thinking of responses like, "Well, a coyote has to eat." And pointing out that it's actually illegal in Jonestown to harbor a stray or lost pet. Also, having people over violates the stay-home orders. I guess I was crazy to think posting a picture and location of a dog might help someone instead of being a heartless act.

Sleep came. And this morning, I WAS fine.

But it got me to thinking: What if I'm a person who damages things around me without knowing it? D's therapy helped me to see some things that, even though I know them now, I'm not sure how to fix.   D's therapist recommended I get some clinical support, as well... and I might, but it feels like I'm not sure how/when that will fit into my life.

At least I can work on this until then.

"A momentary madness."

I can breathe through the moment. I can try to notice the heat creeping up my spine before it gets here. I can take better care of myself and the ones around me. That gives me something to work on while we're staying in.

Birthday wishes and a bit of looking back

Happy birthday, D!

I won't say the trite things like "I can't believe you're 17" or "It all happened so fast," mostly because I CAN believe it, and it happened in exactly 17 years. I've been uploading pictures to the cloud from old back-up thumb drives, and have relived so much of your life through visual memories in the past few days. And I have some thoughts. (surprise, surprise)

Man, I've loved being your mom. Most of my best memories involve you, even if you don't remember them yourself. The pictures bear out those times. But they also testify quietly to some things you CAN'T see in the pictures. Every parent, every person, has things in their life that they would like to go back and tweak. I don't spend too much time worrying about those things. But there are several overreaching aspects of your childhood, and of being your mom, that I regret significantly and wish I had not done/could undo/had done better. They are:

1) Authoritarian parenting. I didn't ever think about whether there was another way when you were a kid. It was all I'd been exposed to, and so it was easy to fall into that. And when telling you what to do didn't work, I would tell you what to do again... either LOUDER or just with more words. Over and over again. And I hate that. I desperately wish that when you'd been born, I'd seen our relationship as more of a partnership than a top-down enterprise. I always tried to respect your opinion and personhood, but it was always with the idea that I was in charge. I am sorry. I'm sorry it took me until you were a teenager to realize that there was another way. 

2) Lack of empathy when you were genuinely in need. There have been times in your life when I've been incredibly impatient with you when you expressed exhaustion and frustration at times that were inconvenient to me. When I look back on them, I can think of only a few reasons I reacted in such an ugly manner.

The first is that, when I've recognized that you absolutely COULD do something (like math when you were 6, or riding a bike a few miles when you were 11), I thought pushing you to complete it using whatever means necessary would eventually help you see that you were capable, too. How stupid. That doesn't work for me; why would I think it would work for someone else?

The second is that, in some situations when you were ready just to give up, I didn't have an out or know what else to do. So I reacted in my own stress and inability to your stress and inability.

The final one is that, in times when I've been extremely needy and requiring the most support, I have found that same need in others to be ugly. So maybe I was kind of mad that you needed emotional support when I didn't feel like I had any to spare? 

Regardless, I'm so sorry. I wish I'd stopped everything every time and sat with you to figure out a way we could work it out together. The "reasons" I've thought of aren't an excuse, and I regret it deeply.

3) Related to the above, but encompassing a lot more: I wish that the day I filed for divorce, I'd started the habit of waking up every morning and looking at myself in the mirror and reminding myself, "You're the adult. You're doing what you need to do. Your feelings will save for later; take care of D's." I was so focused on my own hurt for a good year and a half after the divorce that I was not at all as attentive to your moods and needs as I should have been. I wish I'd left the church after the first meeting with the elders; that failed reconciliation process sucked so much energy and joy that I could have focused on you. I wish I'd not tried to maintain any extra-familial relationships that required energy and were draining. In general, I'd never want to live any of my life over, but if I could go back to that time and do it over, knowing what I know now, I'd do it in a heartbeat. I failed you on so many occasions.

Those things said, I hope you know or someday will realize that I have always wanted you to be happy and have made conscious decisions at the time that I believed would be to your benefit. Even when I was wrong.

There was one time when you were about 5, and it was a gorgeous fall day, and you'd dressed up like you were going to a party, but we weren't going anywhere special. Instead, we went outside, and you were crunching around in the leaves and chasing butterflies. I sat down on the driveway because it was warm, having been in the sun all day. I thought, "This is a magical moment." Everything slowed down. I didn't have a camera, and knew I'd have to carefully remember everything  exactly as it was. You were happy and free and I absolutely relished those moments of your childhood.

Another favorite was driving all over Texoma with you, doing mystery shops, listening to audio books and eating French fries and trying on clothes. You were such a great companion; I never could have done those things if you hadn't been game. (I'll never forget coming back to the car after a revealed shop at the Burger King near Love Field when you told me, "Dumbledore is dead." I felt like a different person the whole drive home.)

Also, all of those day trips into Dallas to visit the art museum, or the zoos, or Sharkarosa Ranch. I hope you are glad we homeschooled. I feel like I had a chance to live another childhood of wonder and exploration because of it. 

I have always loved spending time with you. As you've matured and come into your own, I don't wistfully wish for those times back; I'm just extremely grateful to have had them. It's been a blessing to watch you grow up. I will miss you in a few years when you set off into your own solo adventure.

I love you. I hope you have a great 18th year. 

Mom

Dear 15-year-old me...

Hey, you. I know you're upset right now. Your first experience with a boyfriend just ended, and you're disappointed. I'm sorry. It really does suck. But before you start high school and before you begin a journey that will eat up so much of the next three decades of your life, I want to intervene. I want to assure you that there is another way. And, mostly, I want you to understand how much you can accomplish if you are willing to try to throw off the false messages with which our culture has been bombarding you since the day you were born.

I know something about you that maybe no one else knows. You hate your body. You feel monstrous and huge, completely "other" from even your closest friends. When you sit on the floor, cross-legged, reading notes at a sleepover, you notice how the flesh on your friend's leg doesn't round up at the calves like yours does. You see another friend wearing clothes that you think would look like a clown costume on you, and you're jealous that she can get away with picking anything from the thrift store shelves and it will look nice. You stand in front of your parents' vanity mirror and extend your belly as far as it will go. "I hate you," you tell yourself. "You're disgusting."

That, you will learn, many, MANY years from now, is called "internalized fatphobia." You have bought into the idea that fat people are lazy and gross. You are neither. Your self-talk is making it worse. First of all, isn't true; your future self will look at pictures of you at this time and be shocked at how someone so beautiful could feel so ugly. Secondly, even if it were true that you were exceptionally corpulent, science will bear out that genetics and puberty are the culprits and not your lack of motivation or appreciation of good food or any moral failure on your own part.

But every time you reinforce to yourself the message that you are somehow "less" because you do not meet some arbitrary standard of beauty, you make life worse for yourself.

You do not owe thinness to anyone. Not even yourself. You have believed a lie, and you will waste so much time and emotional energy powering this machine. Please don't. Please try to find the better way.

You don't realize it, but every time you indulge in self-hating fatphobia, you also make life worse for other women. Every time you judge yourself, you judge them, too. Either they're "thinner" than you and therefore an object of envy and resentment, or they're "fatter" than you and a source of judgmental feelings of relief and maybe even superiority.

Other women are not your competition. You don't have competition. This isn't a race or a game to be won. Living that way is isolating. Other women are your comrades. Don't you see how damaging this is to you all? You should all be on the same side. You should be about dismantling this world view, not continuing to prop it up.

Let me give this to you straight: Purposeful weight loss (through dieting and/or exercise) does not work in the long-term. Science has borne this out time and time again. Any program or study that promises or shows weight-loss only follows participants for two years. Within 5 years, 95% of people who lose weight have gained most if not all of it back. I'd cite multiple sources, but you do not have the internet like we do yet. Trust me, the future is great in this regard. You'll have access to so much information and so much validation. I just wish you could believe me in 1987.

Not only does purposeful weight loss not work, it backfires. Your body's metabolism slows down when you lose weight, and it stays slower. This means that the ultra-low-fat diet you will engage in from the time you're 20 until you're 23 will affect your ability to manage weight for the rest of your life. And again when you're 30 and lose weight "healthier." And 33. Every time, it will be harder. Every time, it will require more work. Every time, you'll have to expend more energy to work out and eat fewer and fewer calories. And you'll always gain it back. Always. Even when you keep it off for almost 7 years.

Health-wise, weight cycling like this puts a huge burden on your cardiovascular system. And repeated dieting interferes with your ability to listen to your body's hunger and satiety signals. It will further separate you from your social contacts, when you don't allow yourself to eat after a certain time of day, or when you check out of a conversation early because you cannot miss a workout or terror will ensue.

You're not going to believe this, but this is the most important thing: The best thing you can do for yourself at 15 is to rid yourself of the fatphobic attitudes the culture has given you, and then work on helping everyone else do it, too.

This is actually easier, and much more fulfilling, than hating and berating yourself. It's more productive than engaging in a mental and physical illness to make your body more appealing to yourself and others.

So... what if you do it? What if you manage to chip away at every lie you've ever believed about yourself and your body and decide to dedicate your energy to things like pursuing your passions? There is a two-pronged problem here, and you'll have addressed only one.

The second part is that, yeah, pretty much everyone in our culture has co-opted bigotry toward fat people. This will include men in whom you are interested, and who you want to be interested in you.

I wish you could just forget about dating for the next ten years, but I know you won't, so maybe you'll just take this to heart:

If any man claims to care about you but shows disdain toward your body, HE DOES NOT LOVE YOU. Love is not conditional. He might like your personality. He might find you humorous or think you have a beautiful face or feel like you might make a good partner. However, ultimately, he is selfish and foolish.

Your body is not a shell that holds you. Your body IS you. You are your body. Everything you do -- sleeping, talking, walking, laughing, watching a movie, singing -- EVERYTHING you do is enabled by your amazing body. It's not a shirt you can change to please someone else (though, for what it's worth, if someone doesn't like your shirt and thinks he can tell you to change it, he's probably not great for you, either).

If someone shows disdain for your body, END THE RELATIONSHIP. That might sound drastic, but it is absolutely necessary. There is no getting around or over it. If someone's feelings of affection for you are predicated on your body looking a certain way, that is not unconditional love, and you need to remove yourself from it.

I heard a podcast once (kind of like a radio program) where a woman was saying that she'd realized something about a man she was living with when she was engaging in disordered eating and exercise: He was probably the only person who knew how unraveled her life was, and not only did he not stop it, he encouraged her. He encouraged a woman he alleged to love to continually sacrifice her pleasure and ease (by passing up food she liked, by spending hours doing work-outs she hated, etc.) because her thinness was social currency to him. To put a finer point on it: He shows up with a hottie on his arm, and it make him look like a big deal. So she's doing all of this horrible labor just for him to glean the benefits. That's definitely not love. It's dysfunctional.

And if any man says, "I can't help it; I'm just not attracted to bigger women," then whatever. Good luck to him. He is a bigot, and you don't need that kind of person in your life.

Not at all incidentally, you, too, have that bigotry. It is death, and you need to cut it out immediately. Everyone, including yourself, yes, but EVERY SINGLE PERSON, deserves respect and the freedom to move and exist in the world without harassment regardless of how they look, of their size, of their abilities, of their health, or of anything. Every single person deserves to eat what they want, go where they want, wear what they want, and be who they are without anyone else's opinions being foisted on them. You have to take your thoughts captive and excise them. The phrase, "Do they even own a mirror?" should die on the vine long before it becomes a conscious thought. No one should do this to you. You cannot do it to others. Or yourself.

I'm writing you because I don't want you to look around at the great life you have 30 years from now and wonder how much further along you might be if you could trade those 300,000+ minutes (that's more than half a year!) you spent working out and the countless hours you meal-planned and obsessed over what you were going to eat, and how many calories it had, and how much fat, and when was your next free day, and how many candy corn could you manage in one day when you otherwise ate only dry spinach for doing something that would have made your life or the world at large a better place.

You will get to this place of freedom. It will be a hard-won battle, and, actually, it will be ongoing, as some of these dogmas die more slowly than others. But if you could just start on it now instead of after your second divorce (*wince* I KNOW), you could save yourself a lot of heartache and wasted time.

I know you don't cuss. I wish, just a little bit, that you did. Because instead of responding with silent and hidden hurt when someone judges you as unworthy due to your body type, I really wish you could just happily respond, "F*(4 that" and get on with your life without a second thought. Before you're middle-aged.

In retrospect,
46-year-old me

The ultimate parental failing... yes, I've done it

Everyone thinks they're going to be a good parent. Well, at least I believe everyone starts out wanting to parent well. You read your books, you gather intel, you form a plan. Even if it's not your first time around, it feels like it is, except this time you have experience of your own and you know that there are things you want to do better. To do more. To do as closely to perfect as is humanly possible.

Well, people, I'm here to tell you: I failed.

I failed big time.

I had such good intentions, but in the end those intentions fell prey to my discouragement and it is with great shame, mingled with relief, yes, but mostly shame that I write this blog post.

What have I done?

Before I tell you, understand that I haven't even told James yet. In fact, if someone will message him around 10:30 tonight, after I'm in bed, and tell him to read this, that would sincerely be doing me a solid.

Then he can process it overnight and maybe see his way around forgiving me in the morning.

The fact is that it's too late to go back and undo it. That's why I didn't tell anyone. I didn't want to be talked out of it. I'm sort of stubborn that way.

So what did I do?

::gulp::

I sold our cloth diapers.

I'M SORRY FRIENDS, FAMILY, ENVIRONMENTALLY-CONSCIOUS COMMUNITY, AUSTIN, TEXAS, UNITED STATES, AND THE WORLD BOTH PRESENT AND FUTURE.

Truly, truly, I am sorry. But I couldn't do it any more.

We had 17 diapers, so that was about enough to get us through 36 hours. Those of you with large families can scoff, but mandatory laundry every day and a half was wearing me out with this high-needs baby and at least one high-needs cat after whom I have to clean up every two hours or so.

You go through cloth diapers faster than disposable, and so when Mal would pee while I was changing his diaper, that meant two gone. Then he'd poop 8 seconds later, so that'd be four. Then when I changed that one, he'd pee again, and there are almost a third of the diapers used in under a quarter hour.

The smell... ehh, I could handle that. It's just pee-ier than with disposable. But Mal's backside was red and angry about every three days by the end of the day. Whether it was a growth spurt so he'd nursed a lot and had runny stools or was on meds or whatever... We use all the right stuff for preventing diaper rash, but often I'd put him in disposables just to give his derriere a break.

Now we're moving, and buying a regular washing machine that will use dozens of gallons of water per load.

And I couldn't. I just couldn't.

You can't make me change my mind, because I already shipped them! Actually, I rode my bike down to the post office, and I'm hoping that riding my bike everywhere so that I can never recall exactly when I last bought gas counts as sort of carbon offsets for pitching toxic waste into landfills.

But who am I kidding?

I know it doesn't.

I only hope that one day, I'll be able to look at my mommy self in the mirror again. And, no, this isn't a happy dance I'm doing. It's the dance of shame. I'm so so sorry.

An Open Letter

For obvious reasons, I can't contact you. I doubt I will ever be able to, and yet I know that I owe you a debt that I cannot repay. I hope, however, that if I put this apology out there, maybe it will find you, and maybe it will mean something to you.

This is not the time to go into the "what"s and "why"s of everything. I don't think we will ever agree about what "happened." But here's something that I know is real:

I am so sorry that I hurt you. I genuinely am.

You were a bosom friend at a time when I needed one desperately. I appreciate that. I appreciate your loyalty at a difficult time in my life. I appreciate your care for my daughter, and your desire to teach her things. Your mentoring spirit and your bent to educate others was one of my favorite things about you.

You told someone once to do an internet search for some video, to which you pointed as proof that I admired you. Of course I admired you. Everyone knew that. I didn't hide it. I thought that you were a very talented person, with incredible stories, and so, so much to offer the world. I still think that.

You told me once that I was cold, remorseless, and unfeeling. You were probably right. I apologize for being cynical and hardened. I am very sorry that I pulled you into the orbit of my life at a time when my life had no center. I apologize for being self-focused to the exclusion of your feelings.

I don't think that it matters that that was never my intention.

The reality is that I hurt you. I let you down. I was in a sh*tstorm and I involved you, then once I found my way clear of the mess, I left it and you behind.

I can see how that might look intentional. I know it was callous. I empathize with your anger. I was experiencing the same anger, directed elsewhere, parallel to yours. And I have sincere sorrow about the things that I did, and the pain that I caused.

Every once in a while, I see something that I think you'd like, and I mourn a bit that I can't send it your way. I wish you all of life's happiness. I hope that you can extend grace to forgive me in your heart, but if you can't, I will understand. I really will.

You were one of the dearest people to my heart, and getting to know you, and your story, and your family's history, was a bright spot during days that didn't have much else to recommend them. I am sorry that I injured you. I am forever sorry.

Radio Breakdown

A strange thing happened on the way to a play date today. Daphne and I were driving up Mopac when a two-year-old song came on the radio. Maybe you've heard this little ditty. It's called "Titanium." Daphne and I have listened to that song a lot, and its release in early August of 2011, during which time I was going through Round Two of what I consider three rounds of craziness surrounding my personal life, made it my anthem at the time.

Since it's not a brand-spanking new song anymore, the song doesn't see as much radio time as it used to. For some reason, as I processed the lyrics, I found myself with tears streaming down my face. I could picture myself, standing, with arms open, during the chorus... something I used to play over and over again in my brain in order to steel myself against my reality.

In case you haven't heard it, or you just weren't paying attention to the lyrics, here they are:

You shout it out,
But I can't hear a word you say
I'm talking loud not saying much
I'm criticized but all your bullets ricochet
You shoot me down, but I get up

I'm bulletproof, nothing to lose
Fire away, fire away
Ricochet, you take your aim
Fire away, fire away
You shoot me down but I won't fall
I am titanium

Cut me down
But it's you who'll have further to fall
Ghost town and haunted love
Raise your voice, sticks and stones may break my bones
I'm talking loud not saying much

I'm bulletproof, nothing to lose
Fire away, fire away
Ricochet, you take your aim
Fire away, fire away
You shoot me down but I won't fall
I am titanium

Stone-hard, machine gun
Firing at the ones who run
Stone-hard as bulletproof glass

You shoot me down but I won't fall
I am titanium
You shoot me down but I won't fall
I am titanium
I am titanium

Why did I cry so much? Why did it hit me on this day?

There were several things:

1) Titanium is hard. It is very strong and not easily worn down. For years, I lost myself under layers of protection. I got to the point that nothing could hurt my feelings. I had to in order not to have a breakdown. I think about how vulnerable I am privileged to be with James, and it makes me sad for that person who existed for about a decade. It kind of also makes me sad that James sometimes has to navigate a minefield that might still be lurking, but just last night, I was able to talk to James about something that was bothering me in a way that I would not have felt safe confiding several years ago. And he listened. He might not even have agreed with me, or thought that I had a point. In fact, a lot of times, he probably thinks that I am absolutely ridiculous. But there is the safety here to express my true self and not be mocked or reprimanded or resented.

2) When the person who is supposed to love you the most doesn't trust you and you can't trust them, then it skews your view of the whole world. A few years ago, I felt very much on my own except for my child, and she's a child, so I never leaned on her for emotional support. I came to a point of hopeless desperation where it seemed to me that, if I were ever to have a chance at emotional well-being again, I was going to have to seek it out for myself.

Because of my circumstances and my own weakness, I did not believe that I could trust anyone. Honestly, I probably didn't think that I could trust God at that point. I felt like, if the situation stayed the way that it was, I would be better off just dying, but... I have a kid and I love her very much. However, so many very well-meaning people tried to pour into me the prudent advice to avoid the appearance of sin, and I felt a lot like the time that a friend's brother's wife tried to physically accost me, I said, "I'm going to get the *eff* out of this house," and the elderly mother told me not to swear. I was incredulous. "She can threaten me physically, but the 'f' word is unacceptable?"

I don't know how to explain what was happening to me except that I had been in a deep, dark hole for years and years, and I was finally in possession of the strength to climb out, and once I hit the light, the people standing outside of the hole were yelling at me that my clothes were inappropriate, and trying to shove me back into the hole until I could find something suitable to wear.

This all made me very, very angry and very, very hesitant to trust anyone with the full details about what was going on. Consequently, if you were involved in my life at that time, I owe you an apology. If you tried to give me advice, I most likely did not listen. If you asked me how I was doing or what was going on, I probably lied to you. I was extremely open about my life and my struggles up to a point. Then a couple of things happened: Even though I told the absolute truth, I was treated as though I were guilty. After that, other people started telling their own versions of what was going on. And a lot of people believed a lot of lies, and I'll admit that I did NOTHING to dispel any of the rumors because, after years of sacrificing relationships and trying literally everything that I could think of, I was DONE.

I am not making excuses for the way I conducted myself; lots of it was rebellious and wrong. I'm just explaining that there is a survival mechanism that kicks in after years of being undermined and betrayed by the person who is supposed to be your most trusted companion, and it skews one's view of how much to let anyone else in, and how much to let anyone else speak into your life or demand answers of you. Two years ago, I was very much in the, "Screw you; I'm just trying to survive here" mode. And I truly am sorry.

3) My sister knows a lot of stuff about me. She grew up with me, true, but over the years, as we've led separate grown-up lives, I've also told her just about everything. She is, I believe, a "safe" person in whom I can confide. Now, if she ever got mad at me, and if she were mentally disturbed in some way so that it became her goal to manipulate me into a certain outcome by threatening to air my dirty laundry AND to add some of her own embellishments to the stories in order to curry favor or turn people against me, it would come as a huge shock and pull the whole "trust" rug out from under me. This happened to me TWICE in just a couple of years. Two people with whom I'd been close did not like the path I was taking, and took it upon themselves to contact people we knew in common with information both real and imagined in order to... I don't know? Shame me? Cut me off from everyone else so that that person was the only one left who would still talk to me? I will never understand this. I have  been plenty pissed at plenty of people, but I cannot imagine trying to ruin someone's friendships, reputation, etc. by spreading gossip.

That's the worst thing ever: When someone you've loved and trusted enough to be open about your faults and fears takes those things and twists them around to use against you. The second worst thing is when people who weren't as close, but whom you also admired and respected believe the stories and/or distance themselves from you.

When all of that was happening, I had to bow myself up against the constant pain of people I thought knew me better falling away from me. I had to convince myself that I was bulletproof. Otherwise, I was going to be ripped to shreds.

In the end, I could not fight anymore. It's the main reason I moved to Austin. Well, that and Austin is just an awesome town. :)

There is so much healing that has happened over the past year or so that I can barely even fathom it. It's my nature to want to "fix" and I hate leaving messes in my wake. But sometimes, you have to give up and walk away. 

My heart is so much softer now than it was for a long time. I am grateful to James for his patience and for his creating an environment where I am free to be who I am, to have the feelings that I have (whether they make sense or not), to express myself, and to explore my passions. And I can do it as myself, not as a fake version of me that I've had to build up to protect myself.

Now, this is more the speed of my heart: