May 3, 1991

Dear Future Self:

I’m sitting here in our semi-dirty apartment on Catherine Street while Tim makes cinnamon rolls from scratch in the kitchen.  There’s a joke in there somewhere but I don’t know what it is.  I’m looking around at this place in all its grungy glory - the pink stove (before breast cancer pink comes into fashion), the avocado green refrigerator.  I spend a lot of time here being smart, feeling sad, writing, experimenting.  Even now I get how geeky it is to spend my Tuesday nights in the Objectivist philosophy group.  Shouldn’t we be out drinking and smoking, like other college kids?  Let’s hope you laugh when you read this, because you’ll remember all the bad decisions we made this year and in the next few to come. 

I know us well.  I know we’re going to have a ton of fun in our 20’s.  The palm reader we’ll go to in 1994 will tell us the truth:  the years between 22 and 30 will be constant chaos, moving, change, loving, leaving, ups and downs.  The 30’s are supposed to be our best, most stable years.  I can see us getting married to some nice boy from Jersey, wearing a pretty white dress, anorexia serving us well.  We’ll pop out some beautiful kids, buy a house, practice being Holly Homemaker in the suburbs.  But knowing us, we’ll get itchy the further away from our roots we get.  And knowing us, we’ll probably blow it because rising from the ashes is what we do best. 

I’d like to think that we’re going to do something spectacular before turning 40.  Write a book.  Climb a mountain.  Become a nun.  Become a patron of the arts (no idea where the money to be a philanthropist is going to come from, but just go with me on this one).  Become Volunteer of the Year, or start a kennel for dogs who need homes.  But if not, I’m still going to try to be proud of us.  Being a mom is an achievement too, and sometimes being a mom means putting the other stuff aside for a few years. 

It’s funny to know that I am hyper-critical of myself right now, and I know that at 40, we’ll look in the mirror and think, “DAMN, I looked good when I was 20.”  I still don’t see what you will see, but I’ll give it to you.  At 40 we will be wrinkled and curmudgeonly, because from way back here in 1991, 40 seems really freakin’ old.  People will probably tell us that we look great for 40.  Right now, looking younger is annoying because I’m constantly carded when buying cigarettes or trying to get into a club.  At 20, I’m sitting here in Ann Arbor at the peak of our beauty and unfortunately, I suck at appreciating my size 6 curvy body.  I’m hopeful that we will be happier in our skin at 40, even though there’s a lot more skin in which to be happy. 

When I think of us married, I get sort of hazy and woozy.  Our friends already plan their weddings - Genevieve even picks up Modern Bride at the drugstore.  I’m not planning our wedding quite yet.  I don’t really get the whole idea of marriage, but that’s probably because I don’t date anyone but men who should have their legs tethered to cement blocks and dropped into Lake Huron.  We’ve made lots of bad decisions, not going with our gut, not trusting our instincts.  I’m fairly certain we’re going to struggle with that a bunch more in the next 20 years, but by 40, let’s hope you get our crap together for us, girlfriend.  Right now I’m allowed to flounder, change my mind, sway in the breeze.  In another 20 years, however, you need to give us some backbone and decide what is right for us.  I’m counting on you, grandma. 

Whatever we’re doing at 40, I think it’s going to be fabulous.  How can I think anything else?  Maybe you’ll even surprise me - take up running, actually beat an eating disorder, find someone worthy to love and be the type of person who is worth enough to be loved as well.  Stranger things have happened.

No matter what, we’re in this together - so make our 40’s spectacular.  I’m counting on you to make this life worth it. 

- Cristina

I had coffee with a friend of mine today.  We hadn’t seen each other in a while and had some catching up to do.  We were talking about functional vs. dysfunctional relationships (I jokingly said, “functional” means “it works for me!”).  My friend said something to the effect of, “I’ve been doing this for so long I have no idea if it’s normal or not.  It’s just the way things are.” 

I’ve had lots of relationships where “normal” - i.e., what’s expected - is completely not cool.  The norm in one might be that lying is acceptable on all levels.  The norm in another might be that I give until I’m bled dry and receive little to nothing.  Another norm could be that our communication revolves solely around superficial nonsense, a relationship built entirely on “how was your day” and “what’s for dinner?” 

When you’ve been married for a long time, or in long-term relationships, however you legally define them, your version of normal can be its own form of baggage.  I’ve made a few comments about some dating mishaps I’ve had.  I remember going through a phase in the late mid 1990’s where I could have easily written a book on the bizarre things that happen when you are in the dating universe.  I dated a lot - I was young, employed, thinnish, and I had long hair.  But really, who could predict that one date would end up dropping trou at 2 am, in front of you and your group of friends, just to jump drunkenly off a diving board in an apartment complex pool (which later earned him the nickname “The Pendulum” - of which he was inordinately proud)?  Who could predict that my 35 pound mutt would save me from a near date-rape experience?  Or the date that ended within 5 minutes after I spilled a pitcher of iced tea on the crotch of his neatly pressed khaki Dockers, saving me from 2 hours of bad food with a humorless engineer from eastern North Carolina? 

Back then, I used to despair.  I just wanted a “normal” guy.  Someone without weird fetishes or a penchant for embellishing everything.  Gainfully employed and not interested in mooching off me.  Someone who could hold a decent, intelligent conversation - because back then I’d given up hope of meeting someone who could hold a decent, intelligent AND intellectual conversation.  My dream man back then is probably still my fantasy today, a veritable Frankenstein of country boy meets metrosexual meets athlete with the genetic code of an artist.  A man who can talk about politics like Jason Kenney can (because Jason, although a staunch Republican, could always explain the issues in a fair and balanced way - the REAL Fox news of Richmond, VA), appreciate contemporary art while sipping snotty wine at a gallery opening, followed by greasy pizza and bad reality television immediately following.  A guy who mixes nerd with cool (like Dan being a weather geek and saying “cumulus” and other weather terms while wearing his weird hat).  A guy who could make me feel safe, in a decidedly non-feminist way, I might add, because his hugs were that big and that encompassing.  A guy who collects weird things, like EPs or Virgin Mary statues or folk art. 

I don’t really believe that anyone’s ideal mate exists.  I think we put together the different pieces of what we need by drawing from the sources available.  My significant other has the power to make me feel incredibly safe and protected.  I feel beautiful and independent around him.  I feel like a good mom and, in general, a good person.  I have my art friends for that piece, my writing nerds, my blogging friends, my workout buddies.  My life feels very complete.  My “norm” is having a diverse group of people around me to sustain me.  Hopefully I sustain them as well.

For me, however, this whole “relationship” thing is surprisingly new.  I have trouble determining what’s “normal” for me to want and what is expecting too much.  Divorced women have to rely on their friends quite a bit; I am having to redefine my meaning of friendship and what works for me.  By relationship I’m not only speaking of romantic entanglements.  I guess I’m finding it a bit difficult navigating what is OK with me these days, and what is not OK. 

I dated someone previously who was a decent human being, but after being abused by his ex-wife for over a decade, completely self-centered.  He’d spent years caring for someone else and all he wanted from me was to care for him.  He didn’t want to have to work at anything.  The oblivious me didn’t quite realize this until a month or two down the road, when I began to feel resentment from out of the blue whenever anything was asked of me.  One night he asked me for a glass of water; I think my internal response was something along the lines of “Get your own blasted water and soak your head in it.”  The vehemence of my thought got my attention.  My resentment, 99% of the time, is related to an uneven relationship. 

Yes, I know.  Dating and relationships are difficult.  I’m a terrible dater. Most married people who are newly divorced suck at dating too.  We are all fish out of the tank, flopping around and trying to figure out how to survive.  We fall back on the things that made our lives easier when married.  Roles that are comfortable to others feel as cozy as an iron maiden to me; my resistance to anything that smacks of marital blissdom is legendary at this point. 

I don’t know what normal is.  I don’t know if I’m doing this right, or messing it up, or not expecting enough, or expecting too much.  I’m winging it, hoping that with a little patience, some sunlight and plenty of water, this exotic plant will find a way to live around my black thumb.

I’ve written a lot about my experience with therapy and in particular, my awesome therapist.  I started seeing her when I hit my first of numerous bottoms.  I distinctly recall sitting down with her the first time saying, “My marriage is falling apart”.  After that I was crying so hard I’m sure I made no sense but, as she continued to be through the time I worked with her, she stayed calm and attentive. 

Over the year plus I’ve known her, small details about her have emerged.  We went through our separations a month apart from each other.  We both have two kids around the same ages.  We are both mildly obsessed with running and are both Weight Watchers advocates and flunkies.  Our social circles overlap - but of course we didn’t know this at the time I started seeing her.  Richmond is a very small town, so it’s hard to find someone who isn’t Kevin Bacon to your 7 degrees of separation. 

Lately, the ongoing joke between us has been about when we are going to fire each other.  We’ve both always been able to turn on the therapist/client relationship as soon as the office door closes.  When it opens, we talk about running or whatever else might be happening.  All of this is to say that we have balanced the fine line between friends and doctor/patient for a longish-time, and this is primarily because she is the master of professionalism and she takes her profession very seriously. 

Today we met at an out-of-office location for a variety of reasons, but primarily because we both have a coffee obsession and like the comfy chairs and white-noise coffee shop vibe.  Having grown up writing and talking and musing in coffee shops, it’s not difficult at all for me to speak about very personal things quietly in a corner. 

While we socialized for a few minutes before the session began, she shared some big things that are happening for her.  And I knew at that point we were going to fire each other, but I didn’t have the strength to do so myself.  Together we agreed to end our professional relationship and grow our personal relationship.  I’m kind of ecstatic because I adore her and have always wished she wasn’t my therapist so we could be friends; now I can do that. 

Is it weird having a friend that wasn’t a “friend” before? Yeah, a little.  She knows things about me that no one else knows.  I have shared some very dark things with her, dark feelings, bad days, the worst moments of my life.  But as she said today, the more I learn about her on a personal level, the more I won’t worry about being judged.  And frankly, I’m not worried about being judged. 

(I laugh about this a little too - apparently I’m so awesome that even my therapist wants to be friends with me . . . heheheheh . . . .)

On the harder note side, I cried in public today because of this discussion.  It wasn’t that I was sad she wasn’t going to be my therapist any more (well, it was, a little).  Mostly I was scared.  I’ve known for a while now that I’m doing much better, after the big road bump that was Christmas.  I have a great support system in place, I’m stable in my house and my finances are working themselves out.  Yes, I have stress, but nothing compared to the non-stop drama and chaos that took place for the better part of 18 months.  I did not accurately assess the damage to mind and body that those kinds of stresses can cause.  I needed her badly, as a sounding board when I was about to make bad decisions, and as a safe place to land and regroup when I made the bad decisions anyway. 

I felt a little untethered with the decision because it means she thinks I’m strong and stable enough to be done with therapy and although I agree with her, I’m still scared.  The only constant since my initial freak out have been my Thursday mornings with her.  Issues and doubts and fears and neuroses I’ve had for years - decades - slowly untangled themselves in the confines of her office and wandered out of her door, never to be seen again.  Even today as we talked about something unrelated to my own life, I had a number of epiphanies or “aha” moments. 

As we were packing up to go our separate ways, she asked me to go ahead and schedule with her for next week.  I was confused for a moment; hadn’t we just said we weren’t scheduling appointments anymore?  Then I realized she was making lunch plans with me - clearing time out of her very busy life - to have lunch with a friend she apparently cares a lot about. 

In the meantime, I’m standing on both feet (although one is very sore from Shamrock) and I’m not wavering much.  I know how to handle my bad days.  I know when to reach out and when to wait it out.  Having those appointments has been a security blanket for me, but I have needed them less and less from a crisis-perspective and more from a gut-check perspective.  I’m going to be just fine.  I know she will be, too.

I had a call with the estate and trust attorney Mike and I used way back when to set up trusts and directions in the event we were both killed individually or in one great fell swoop.  He was calling because Mike is (rightly so) removing me as a fiduciary and benefactor from his side of the documents. 

Our attorney was someone I coached and did marketing planning for many years ago, when I was still earning a living from doing such things . He was always one of my favorites:  soft-spoken but extremely intelligent, passionate about providing the best, most comprehensive services he could, and open to suggestions.  Soon after I stopped consulting for his firm, he went out on his own.  I’d like to think I had something to do with building his self-confidence so that he felt free to do it.

He was calling to get my permission to be removed from Mike’s documents and to find out what I wanted to do. Obviously, I need a new will and trust for the girls.  But at his hourly rate, it’s going to be quite a while for me to be able to afford to do it.  As we talked, I jokingly said, “Well, here’s hoping I don’t die between now and then.” 

He said very quietly, “Don’t worry.  I will do your documents and you can pay me when you can.  You can pay $10 a month or you can wait and pay it all at once.  It’s just not an issue, so stop thinking about it.”  After he said this, he proceeded to ask how the girls were handling everything, remembering their names and that my oldest is the same age as his son.  He wasn’t asking to be polite.  He actually wanted to know. 

I haven’t cried much since our divorce was finalized, but his kindness got the waterworks flowing.  Thankfully it was after we hung up the phone.  I am often overwhelmed by other people’s kindnesses.  The hardest part has been accepting it when it is offered, but I spend my life trying to help other people and now when I most need help, I have to be willing to hear it the offers. 

I think many of us go through life not realizing how the little things we do or give to others drastically affect them.  I know I’ve given much of myself over the years:  time, money, advice, support, hugs, or just a place to be safe.  Because it is easy for me to give, the giving easily loses its value and I underestimate what I have done for others.  I am finally in a position to give back to people again, as I have the emotional energy I was lacking for a year and a half.  I’m stronger, happier, more settled than I have been, but I still very much need help. 

It was an amazing moment for me.  People make jokes about lawyers and sometimes the stereotype is true.  However, the majority of lawyers I’ve worked with (and been married to) are good, decent people.  Some are even in law for the right reasons.  I remembered all the sessions I’d had with this attorney in his small office years ago and how we’d talk about his future goals, determining the individual steps it would take for him to accomplish them.  5 years later we’re discussing things that didn’t seem possible to me back then, but his compassion and thoughtfulness hasn’t changed a bit. 

It actually made me miss my coaching clients.  Even the attorney ones. 

A friend of mine posted on Facebook today about going to a Linkin Park concert by herself.  I was kind of amazed.  She lives in the Detroit area so going to a concert there means actually GOING to Detroit, not the suburbs, and it’s generally not a place I ever felt entirely comfortable.  When Keith would drag me down there, it was fine, or a group of bumpkins from Traverse City would pile into my rustbucket Rabbit and go to clubs using fake ids not for alcohol, but to have a place to dance.  She’s a mom, like me, and loves music, like me, and isn’t going to let a little thing like going to a show alone stop her from attending.

It got me thinking about how much has changed over the past year and half and how much I’ve been able to embrace my solitude. 

Right now, I’m sitting here:

I wanted to go somewhere quiet and nice for a bit, so I chose Caturra and got a nonfat chai latte from my secret stash of money*.  They always have a great fire going and no one usually bothers me or gives me weird looks.  During the day, it’s a ton of “coffice” users - people like me with no real office to speak of, a caffeine addiction, a fear of going completely insane during another work at home day, and a need for free wireless.  At night, it’s different.  Candles are everywhere, it’s all couple-y and intimate, and I definitely stick out.  I’m okay with it.  I kind of like it.  So if I have a night to myself, instead of acting like someone 12 years younger than me, I’ve decided to do things like this that make me feel good and nourished instead of depleted. 

Other things I’ve learned to enjoy doing alone:

Movies.  I used to hate seeing movies alone, but up until finances made them hard to afford, I actually liked seeing movies solo.  I’d hit CVS for candy and head over, pick a weird time for a show, and see movies that had already been out for ages.  Usually that meant I could prop my feet up, burp if the urge hit, and lounge however I wanted.  If I saw a sad movie, I could cry without trying to hold it back, or I could guffaw loudly.  I did (and still do) miss the after-movie commentary and discussion session, but I still get those after the fact when I bother my friends who’ve seen that particular movie.

Running.  I always liked the group aspect of running.  Even if I was running at my own pace, I knew others would be at the start and end point of my run.  Lately I’ve become more fond of running alone.  I tend to push myself harder on my shorter but faster runs, and I need the break from talking.  My brain shuts off with a hefty grunt and I lose myself in whatever beat is moving my feet.  I glance occasionally at the Garmin but not obsessively anymore.  I return from these runs feeling sweaty and mildly stinky, but as if someone has pressed my reset button.  The weather was so beautiful today I actually did some stretching and yoga poses on my screened porch.  I was actually happy to have my alone time.  I love the group runs on Saturdays, but I also love my lonely footfall on the gravel/trail/roads. 

Sleeping.  After being married for many years, not to mention the years before that in the dating world and the serious committed relationship world, sleeping alone was a weird thing.  On one hand, the bed felt huge - and it was so silent without the sound of the husband’s snores.  Those were pleasurable things at first.  Then it got cold.  Used to having male body heat next to me at night, I froze.  I wasn’t actually cold, but I felt cold inside.  The dark pressed on me and I felt completely exposed and completely alone.  When I first moved to the rental house, all of the weird noises and creaks and sighs scared the crap out of me.  I’d wake up in a cold sweat and reach out instinctively for Mike, only to realize he wasn’t there and he wasn’t going to be there ever again.  It was like a little death every time that happened.

Over the past few months, I’ve begun to finally adjust to sleeping alone.  I’m almost selfish with it now.  I read with the light on (this used to drive Mike crazy).  I hog the pillows, splurged on expensive bed linens, sleep in a snow angels position and probably drool and snore loudly.  There are many nights where I wish I wasn’t able to hog the entire bed, but I have a new love affair with solitary sleeping.  Even the dog, who kept me company during the first hard months, is being relegated to her own doggie bed.  I want my space - in a physical and mental way. 

Eating.  Only recently have I begun to cook for myself again.  Finances again have made this a necessity, and I’m still not getting ultra-fancy, but I’m back to digging around in my old Cooking Lights and various “How to Cook Food That Tastes Good When You Hate Cooking” books.  I admit to even going so far as to light candles and use real plates (instead of paper towels and fingers), and it’s been fabulous.  I still don’t love going out to dinner by myself, but I will do it - when the need arises.  It’s been a nice change to stop eating on my coffee table and instead pull up to the dining room table, light a candle, bring out a book, and eat my food slowly. 

Driving.  I’ve always liked road trips, but now I enjoy an occasional jaunt by myself.  I let as much air in as possible, crank the music, and enjoy some of my favorite things about Virginia: the scenery.  I’m hopeful I can have more time for things like this and get even more outlandish; I might actually spend the night away from home by myself. 

Anyone out there have something you really like to do alone? 

*my secret stash is what happens under my couch cushions and in my car seats and console - always good for at least one cup of something once a month or so)