Assertiveness Class

I'm taking an online assertiveness class through West Los Angeles College. I'm on the second lesson (already behind), and I figured I'd do part of the exercise here. After doing the first lesson, I thought of how my dad is aggressive (in the passive, aggressive, assertive spectrum). I'd talked with my husband about how maybe my dad is autistic, but the aggressive idea fits better. Aggressiveness as a compensation for some shyness in speaking in front of groups, in compensation for not being very traditionally masculine -- despite being a big guy, my dad is more into socializing and computers and sugary drinks than sports and cold stoicism. 

Anyhow, I'm tired. Let's do this: 

Create a picture of yourself

When you are completely relaxed, create a vivid picture in your mind of how you would look as an assertive person. Create the picture of being assertive that you want. Visualize a setting and people with whom you want to be more assertive. See the colors of the surrounding and the clothes you each have on. Hear the sounds and sense the smells of the surroundings. See and hear yourself saying assertive sentences starting with "I think," "I feel," and "I want." Hear the clear, strong, steady tone of voice you are using. Hear the confident thoughts you are thinking to yourself. Visualize yourself standing in an assertive manner, comfortably but firmly balanced on both feet with your hands held loosely at your side. See yourself looking the other person straight in the eye.

This has gone better lately, and kind of out of the blue. I took photos at a fancy comedy event and didn't feel intimidated (like usual) by attractive wealthy-seeming women in stylish clothes. I went to a backyard screening and supported my friend. I went around with her to talk to people and mostly said nothing, but I stood there without feeling uncomfortable. 

I think the picture of me as an assertive person doesn't mean that I always am dressed just right. It doesn't mean that I always have something funny to say or the most insightful question to ask. It means that I show up, in whatever mood or circumstance I find myself in, and appreciate and approach other people as fellow human beings. I feel like I have a place there, that I am worthy of their time (as much as the next person). That they're their own psychological mess right below the surface, just like me. That we can chill. That it can go well or badly. But whatever happens it won't be a referendum on me and my worth as a person. It'll just be a time and one with maybe some exciting possibilities. 

Oh! I do my best to be clear and to be prepared and game and interested in the people who are there. But that's all bonus! That's not my price of entry, that's just me trying to do my best. 

I Don't Envy Your Situation

I always saw him from a bit of a distance, growing up. He was my best friend's older brother and her favorite person. He was so cool. He could make a whole room laugh by saying the unexpected thing at just the right time. He made it look easy. He was all light. He bounded across a room, even when he was just walking. Big strides. One hand holding his pants up because this was the late 90s/early 2000s. He was one of those boys who has that effortless masculine build and athleticism. All genetics and no training. My friend and I tried modeled ourselves after him, we tried to be as daring as he was.

I at no point in my youth told a boy I liked him. I either didn't have the confidence or hadn't developed the ability to notice if I had a shot with someone. I found out much later, after I went to college, after I was married, that my friend's brother had had a crush on me too. And at that point, he was still beautiful. 

Last weekend, I went over to my friend's house. She had just come home from the hospital where they removed her ruptured appendix. Two months ago, she gave birth to identical twin girls. I told her and her husband and her brother -- who was there, as he had been helping watch after her older son -- about my separation. I knew it was going to be a difficult conversation. I had been putting it off. Of all my friends, telling my best friend about my relationship choices has always been fraught. 

When I got my first boyfriend in 8th grade, she teased me so relentlessly that I broke up with him. (His name was "Gentry" and she howled with laughter and called him "Dentisty." Dentistry! Dentistry! It wasn't my fault he had a dumb name.) She was so upset when I got married that she cried her fake eyelashes off as she stood next to me during the ceremony. When I had an affair, she was hurt that I didn't tell her about it sooner. "Don't you trust me?" She asked. "I'd never judge you." 

Her brother, a beer in front of him, wanted to know why I wasn't drinking. "Are you one of those sober California people now?" He had gained weight since I last saw him, and he commented on it. "Stop calling yourself fat," my friend told him. "This might be a mom thing to say, but you look skinny, " he told me. "Sorry, I probably shouldn't have said that." He followed up. I told him it was fine. 

I feel like I'm being cruel -- although accurate -- like, hey look, here's a time where I came off better than someone else. I guess that's what I am doing. But it's not nice to see the beautiful boy I revered in a state like that. Saying, unprompted, that people shouldn't judge him for his drinking. Saying that he's the failure of the family. Saying that he doesn't have very many friends and he doesn't do very much. I feel like he was saying, "Look at us. Look at you, and look at me." And I was looking. And he wanted me to hold that maybe. 

When I got home, he messaged me on Instagram saying that he still has feelings for me. He and his wife have been trying to have a baby. 

My friend -- a different friend -- from college got divorced. Shortly afterwards, people kept coming out of the woodwork, confessing their love for her. One of the most notable was her ex-husband's closest friend. Over dinner, he said he'd been in love with her for a long time. She turned him down. He moved to Florida. My friend's ex told me that he moved there with his girlfriend, who has three kids that he's helping to raise. My friend's ex said this guy's feeling really isolated and alone. 

Christianna, my Greek basketball friend, (last friend I'll mention, I promise) told me that she doesn't envy my situation. That wasn't the main point of whatever she was telling me, it was just a one-off comment. But it struck me as strange. My situation has seemed good to me, like a thousand steps in the right direction. Although, I am getting tired of feeling sad. 

When you go through a difficult time publicly, people tend to show you their pain. They do it directly or indirectly. They say, this is what I'm going through, but I'm soldiering through. And you tell them that that is fine. It's admirable. They don't have to change anything just because you are. Others ask if you'll catch them if they jump -- away from their situation, away from what they're tired of, away from their felt loss of control. And you say you're sorry but no. 

It was great to see you too.

Salon

Went to a Tea with Alice salon today, and it was really nice. 

Communion

I've been thinking about Christianity a lot since being home. I think -- pretty sure -- my brothers are evangelical Christians now. They go to non-denominational churches. I don't know if you'd classify my parents that way. They still go to First Pres, but that particular church left the mainstream UPC because it ordains gay ministers. (And only gay ministers! mu-ah-AH!) 

My mom's worried about me in regards to Christianity. She has been for years. I think she'd be happy with whatever I did with my life as long as I had a relationship with Jesus. It's tough because I don't want her to worry. I want her to feel proud and comfortable and good about herself and her parenting. She's a world-class mom. But I can't pretend to be a Christian if I'm not. I can't pretend that I talk to and have feelings for Spirit Guy. 

I wonder if belief really isn't that important. The way I understood John talk about it (a friend from college who became a Lutheran pastor), Jesus saves us. It's in his hands. It's up to him. Belief is a gift. (Is it a gift? Honestly, when people talk about waiting for God to tell them what to do in their life, they sound nuts. Like God speaking directly to them? What? It's nonsense. Both because God is not real, and if he were real that would be a very silly way for him to conduct his business.) 

I don't know how to reconcile my lack of Christianity to the central role it plays in my family's life. I don't mind them being Christians at all. I think the church community greatly enriches their lives, and without it they might be hard pressed for friends and support. But I'm worried that my non-Christianity will be the only thing they see in me, the only thing they talk about with me, the thing they fixate on. I mean, fair enough if they think I'm ruining my life and ultimately going to hell. I get it, but it's annoying. And not an enriching dynamic. I want better than that for us. I'm not sure how it will shake out. 

At church last Sunday, the pastor was saying lots of stuff I don't believe in. I was participating in a community and culture that wasn't mine. I like the collective singing even if a lot of the songs are corny. I like to hear somebody talk about something they care about. But it wasn't a space for me. And it wasn't a space where, if I stayed for long, I could flourish. 

Then the pastor called people up for communion. "If you believe, you can partake in this table," he said. If you believe. I don't believe, and I'm trying to be more open about who I am, so I could have forgone the communion. But a very strong feeling kicked into gear -- No, communion is God's gift to everyone. I felt very sure about that. I had a birthright to that communion. God's grace belongs to me. 

I don't believe in God, but I'm secure in his promises. 

"I don't believe in Jesus, Mom, and He's fine with it." 

Fear of Flying

I had a thought about my anxious attachment or whatever you want to call it, my preoccupation with my romantic relationships. (Although, as I write that I think... uh, that's like the whole thing with romantic relationships, right? You think about them and stuff.) I mean what seems to be unhealthy, unwarranted levels of fear over being abandoned, over not being good enough, or being good enough but not seen. 

My thought was that my partner also wants the relationship to work out. This is obvious/not obvious. Of course, sometimes people are on their way out of relationships -- hoping they'll end, working towards their conclusion -- but for the most part, both people want the thing to work. Both want to be loved and to love, they want to have their needs met and they want to bring pleasure and companionship to someone else. They want to have that partnership box checked. Both people want the relationship to work and be good. 

It reminded me of anxious flyers. I'm not one. I know we could crash, but I look at the pilots and the flight attendants and think -- they want to survive as much as I do. They're going to use all their intelligence and will to make sure that doesn't happen. I guess I'm pretty okay at turning over my life to other people, if they're professionals and their own life is in the balance. So, it's like that. Relationships are my airplane anxiety. And I can over come the fear of flying in an airplane, so maybe I can logic myself into more confidence in relationships as well. 

January 16, 2023

I went to church with my parent's and my brother's family yesterday. The pastor was the same man who married my brother and sister-in-law. I didn't like him much then because he kept using all these sports metaphors. "Tackling" everything, etc. He has a hint of a southern accent. In his sermon yesterday, he mentioned not liking Joe Biden. He talked about trying to lose weight for your new year's resolution. ("Triggering," I thought.) He preached about John the Baptist, said he was considered great. He talked about other great people throughout all of history. He mentioned no women. 

He talked about how David Hume, philosopher and proclaimed atheist, would travel hours to hear a contemporary preacher preach. When someone asked him about it, said "Hey, you don't believe in this." He supposedly answered, "Yeah, but he does." Meaning the preacher believed what he was saying. The point was supposed to be be on fire for God. Believe what you're saying, and you'll be attractive to other people. Which is true, in general. Be excited about and committed to your own shit, and people will find that attractive. But my takeaway was much stronger the other way -- I want to be like David Hume. I want to travel to listen to people I disagree with just because they believe what they're saying. I want to have that kind of curiosity, that habit of seeking outward. 

January 15, 2023

I'm realizing that a separation, a divorce isn't exactly a rebirth like I was maybe thinking it was. It's felt like my marriage was a mistake -- even at the time I made it. Not that Mitch was a bad person to marry or that I was destined to be miserable or abused. Just that, it wasn't how I wanted my life to go. I didn't recognize myself in the story. I didn't have the right feelings. I wasn't sure I could ever have the right feelings, and I wasn't sure what the right feelings were, but I also was just like - this isn't it. This isn't excitement. I also just didn't have a reason why were getting married. I couldn't get my head around it. At first I justified it by saying we'd go to Russia together. But why get married to go to Russia? Just to have the blessing of our parents. It was all messed up. 

It wouldn't have mattered, our beginnings, if I had shaken that feeling later on. Is it a kind of emotional dysmorphia? Is it the result of trauma? Is it just myself knowing that that wasn't it for me? 

I've gotten a kick, a boost, out of getting out. I feel like I can rewrite my story to be what I want it to be. So that I can see myself. But... my 12 years of marriage isn't going away. Now I have this fractured life. An era of a marriage I will have a hard time explaining to people -- both why I was in it and why I left it. 

Other people have long relationships in their past too. I need to remember that. Someone will have grace with my story just like I would with theirs. Someone will see it as an asset. Everything is permanent, lasting forever all at once. Everything passes, more fleeting than you can imagine. 

January 11, 2023

If I were to get a tattoo -- tattoos -- and you know, I think I can -- I'd get a cicada on my upper thigh, a magpie on my upper arm, the garden of the gods on my ankle. Is that how you're supposed to get tattoos? The cicada would be from the memory of going to Missouri on family reunions growing up. How some summers, that one summer, the cicadas were everywhere. Flying drunk into your hair. Slamming themselves against sliding glass doors. Offering themselves up to the fish in the lake for food. (The fish got tired of them.) 

The bird would be for myself. My bird animal. The one I'd want of myself on my cousin Becky, who gets birds for close people who have died in her life. A blue heron for our grandfather. A blue jay for her sister Angie. I don't think I can ask for a spot myself on her skin (maybe to be reserved like a plot in a cemetery), but I could get myself one on myself. She does birds of others. Is it telling that I would get a bird which means myself? 

The garden of the gods is obvious. It's for where I grew up. That familiar arrangement of rocks, jutting up straight out of the ground where the tectonic plates crashed into each other. A place to ride my bike. To remember that even though I tell people I'm from flat boring Colorado Springs -- the place without any springs -- that I'm really from somewhere else. A tiny town making bank off of taxing the county's weed. The one with actual springs: Manitou Springs. 

January 10, 2023

I'm reading Abandon Me by Melissa Febos. Once I finish, I will have read all her books. I think I read them back to back all in a row: Body Work, Whip Smart, Girlhood, and Abandon Me. No, that's not true. I read Bad Sex after Body Work. Give me memoirs lately about love, relationships, sex. 

I've never read straight through an author's catalogue before, although I've liked the idea. (I think I could have with Tana French, but it would have ruined my life for that span of time. I would have gotten nothing done for months.) Febos' mind seems to work like mine. (I flatter myself.) She loops back and back on things. She's obsessed with relationships, with love, with trauma, with herself. She's a secretive person who wants to be known. In Abandon Me, she talks about feeling like a wild animal in her desires. I relate. She wants love the way I want love, bodily, from a wound, from strength. 

Reading her makes me feel like I know myself better, from finding which words strike a chord in me and which do not. (For example, she's struggled with hating her body - disciplining it harshly - and I feel that I luckily have not.) When she talks about her experience with her beloved, she winds through essays about her parents and her brother. Of course. I feel all those things connected in me too. She seems exposed to the world and like she's overcome it. (Although, even from a place of success -- like being this good at writing and working for the Iowa writers workshop and being married -- who knows if she's really triumphant. She seems to be in a good place, though.) 

Reading her makes me feel more accepting of myself. That my desire for love isn't shameful. That the way I struggle doesn't make me a pitiful thing. That you can write and write and expose yourself and come away understood. If not understood, maybe a little seen. That you can mend your story through the telling of it. 

Lightning. Hot sauce. 

January 9, 2023

I was thinking today about the trolley problem. How I think I'd pretty easily choose to save a loved one and doom a trolley full of strangers. I think I'd even pull the lever (as opposed to the scenario where I just leave the level un-pulled). I think I could look each doomed stranger in the face and read their bio and still save the person I loved. I'm not saying it's ethical. And I think if I were elected president or something -- had accepted an office of authority, with others explicitly in my care -- then I might have to act differently. But as just me, now.... 

I thought about having the friends and loved ones of the people in the trolley looking on, begging me not to pull the lever. They'd all hate me. I understand! But maybe the family of my beloved would be there too, us all personally relieved if morally horrified. Then it became like that: my beloved on the tracks. 

Think of the tension that would put on our relationship. The bar for fulfillment would be sky high. I killed all those people for this? I would say to myself as he half listens to what I'm saying. 

January 8, 2023

I was a guest on Tea with Alice today. I've been helping Alice produce season two of her podcast, and Guy Branum missed his initial recording time. So I stepped in. I'm not... um, obviously not as successful as Guy, or anybody else who's going to be a guest. And I talked about my separation. What a mix of things. I'm also listening to Melissa Febos's book Abandon Me. It's the last of her books I'm listening to (because it's only available on Audible as opposed to from the library), and it was the one I was most eager to read after finishing Body Work. I've liked it best so far. Which brings me back to knowing what I like. I think I will not like living at Noelle's because of the danger I will feel coming home there late at night. I think I will feel like the space is not mine. That I'm intruding. That I won't be able to relax. I hope I am wrong about those things. 

This morning I thought about doing yoga to a youtube video near the poles. The morning light coming in. I've also been thinking about what she said about the loft - how it opens creative potential. How each year she's found herself able to manage. To continue on and in ways that are exciting and fulfilling. 

I think I will miss Mitch's body at night. That familiarity we've built up over years. And even from the beginning how we were able to sleep together in a twin sized bed, curled up like kittens. That was always home to me. 

January 7, 2023

Yesterday, I dropped my husband off at the airport for our first day of official separation. Meanwhile, my lover spent his first night in a trailer in the desert by a poisoned empty sea. (Please excuse this blog post. I've been reading Abandon Me by Melissa Febos, and it's affecting me.) 

 

January 6, 2023

Last night I had fears about leaving, that I was a leaver. I left my family straight out of high school. I went out of state for college. I never moved back. Even now when I visit Colorado, I go to the Fort Collins house. It's nicer than the one I grew up in, and there are fewer memories. I watch other kids from the camping group leave the state, rebel against the rules and beliefs of their upbringings, to eventually come back. Some come back home physically, while other seems to return to their parents' life choices or ethics. I keep going. I don't want to return. I go out and out. I keep thinking of a science fiction story, barely remembered, about an astronaut who is going out into the universe forever. Straight into the unknown, never returning. I feel like that. When will I want to return? When will the appeal of what's out there what's next fade for me?

I'm worried about leaving my husband. What's to stop me from leaving everything? I want to have a home. I want my commitments to mean something. When will I learn to stay? Is it a lesson worth learning?