Things That Sting

Three times now, you told me you don't want me. Twice, you changed your mind. You won't get that luxury again. Sure, I did this to myself. I wanted you to come back. I wanted you to want me. I wanted to be with you. I wanted US, and I was committed.

As I go through and delete all of the pictures of us today, it's funny how each one is associated with a negative memory. The context of when you would dump me next, or some critical thing you said, or just a heavy, nagging sense that I wasn't enough around you. There's good memories too. Great ones. Real, deep laughter and love. True love. I truly loved you. I believe you did me, as well, in your own limited way.

But not enough. Not enough to commit to me. To this. Too messy. Too complicated. No way forward, that you can see. One of us needs glasses because it looked okay up ahead to me. But that's good. I don't need somebody who doesn't want me. I'm too much to be not enough, you know?

I wish you well in your journey, wherever it takes you. I won't even try to imagine that because it hurts too much, whichever outcome. I hope you find what you're looking for. Or I hope you can at least figure out what you're looking for. I thought I had. I am grateful for the growing that being with you caused in me. I had to learn a lot of patience. I had to learn a lot of self-denial. I had to learn self control in new levels so I didn't scare you off, and that was good for me. I had to learn to curb passive-aggressive manipulation habits because you had no patience for them. I had to learn to be less emotional because you couldn't handle it. I had to learn to listen - all the way - before speaking (still working on this one). I learned the beauty of sitting quietly. I learned the value of protecting my down time. I learned that it is possible to give up too much for someone you love. I learned the hard way that it doesn't matter if you give it all, you can't change somebody else's heart.

I learned that sometimes, the things we need to move us forward can be really, really hard and excruciatingly painful and lonely. I thought I had learned that earlier in life, but it feels like I am learning it all over again, fresh and new. I also learned that I can survive things that I feel like I won't.

I am sad. I am sorry for you. For us. For the loss. For the wasted investment. I only hope that some part of if can carry forward into each of our lives separately and make us happier in the end. If I'm honest, right now I want you to suffer, but deep down that's not really true.

I won't say you're a good person. I think you're selfish and broken. Like most of us. Maybe just a bit more. I won't say you're a bad person either. You're just a person like the rest of us and now you're not even a special one to me. You just are.

I will say that I loved you as hard as I knew how. I saw your depth and your strength. And I saw your need for growth and I loved those things.

I know I shouldn't call it a waste. I know that it all happens for a reason. I know that in the end, it's for the best. I know all the things. But it feels like a waste. Like a big, fat, sad waste. But that's life. We buy in. We win. We lose. I gotta believe at some point the buying in is gonna win for me, but not this time. I'm too old for this middle school bullshit. I'm too old for the shame of an ex-boyfriend or another random face in the family pictures. This sucks.

The last time you ended it, I wrote something titled Why The Worst Boyfriend Ever Was the Hardest One to Lose. I never shared it, but here is part of it, edited to remove all the reasons why you were the Worst Ever, those will stay private for the time being... but the rest of it is still painfully true, and I am setting it all out here to remind myself, this time, why I won't look back.

I am learning a lot about control these days. Mostly, about the lack thereof that I have in every aspect of life except, like the stoic philosophers were so keen to point out, what goes on between my own two ears. 

I’ve been wrestling all night, every night, with one of the most intense and long-lived hurts that I have ever experienced. After all the random weirdness in my life, it feels strange to say that I am having such a terrible time recovering from a relationship that was far from ideal. But I think it was the lack of perfection that has been so hard to let go of. I fell for someone that was hard to love, and I loved the challenge.

I has made me aware that no amount of hard work, self-confrontation or dedication can change the mind or will of another person, and no amount of performance on my part can convince someone to love me. Not that I was perfect, far from it. He brought out ugly parts of me that I thought were dead and buried ages ago. Need for control and contact, even the green-eyed monster of jealousy… There were days when I was with him that I didn’t even like myself. But I took those challenges and tackled them. 

At the end of the day, I just wasn’t what he wanted, and it wasn’t a matter of me being worthy (even though I am) or him being an asshole (although he might be), the bottom line is, he gets to decide and there is nothing. I. can. do. Enter the pain. Enter the sense of helplessness. Hopelessness. 

I jumped into this, and he never promised me a rose garden. I moved, I switched up my life on a shaky, hopeless romantic feeling that there was something we needed in each other. I still don’t think I was wrong. I still think he is. But it doesn’t matter. I gambled and I lost, hard. He’s moving on to find what he really wants, now that he’s better, healthier, and he’s “got his shit together,” whatever that means. My shit has never been more all over the place and that’s because he and I measure “together” by different standards. “Together” in his world is financial and material success, “Together” in my world is an unconditional us. I know it’s out there for me, he’s just not a part of it. 

Things About Broken Hearts

Let's be honest: none of us get out this unscathed. We've all had our hearts broken. From the first time that our mothers swatted our hands away from a hot stove and we didn't understand how the nurturer became the bearer of violence against us, we've experienced the pain of betrayal.

We've had our hearts broken as small children when your friends don't let you join them at the potato stamp table in kindergarten (this is me sharing my most vulnerable moments with you), and again as middle schoolers when your BFF tells the cute boy about that one time you picked your nose and ruins you FOREVER.

Your heart is broken again and again in high school when your One True Love turns out not to be and dumps you for the girl who snuck out of the house in the ultraminiskirt. Every disappointment grows in importance as you sense an ever closer approach to Destiny...

And then your heart break again when the Forever that was supposed to be Destiny end in abysmal disaster. Or even if you find some version of Happily Ever After, there are always the ups and downs and mini heart breaks, and the major ones. The days when some hurts feel like they are unbearable.

The more people you love, the greater your odds are, statistically speaking, to face more heartache in your life. Even the happiest of families have their dark moments. We unintentionally inflict pain on the ones we love the most because it's in those spaces that we are the most real, and the most insensitive sometimes. There is no love without hurt. It's the hurting that love causes that gives us art and music and poetry and philosophy.

Even Tim and Faith, with their decades of shining perfection in marriage, have broken each other’s hearts, I guarantee it. With an unkind word, a poor karaoke choice, or that mid 90s turtleneck trend. Even the perfect ones among us inflict a little heartache on each other now and then.

If you're not a sociopath, the question isn't IF you'll get a broken heart, the question is when, and your investment into the lives around you will be rewarded in equal amounts of heartache when those lives inevitably face hardship. 

I've wrestled a lot lately with the whole idea of parenthood as something that is anything more than perpetual heartache. Since my kids were babies it feels like it's been a non-stop freight train speeding, out of control, of things that can (and often do) go wrong. It picks up speed and momentum the older they get. The momentary glimpses of triumph and joy get overshadowed by the hard things. By rejections and  breakups and failures and dashed hopes. Happiness and success come at the high cost of hard work and stress and heartache. 

I watch other parents and I wonder ,when they proclaim the joy of parenting, what it is I am doing wrong as I lie awake night after night and worry whether one kid's firefighting career will be ended by a knee injury and whether there is any earthly way to pay for another kid's college tuition, and just exactly how many sporting events have to be attended and how many phone bills have to be paid to ensure that I am doing my parently duty. As they become adults and make adults decisions, there is little comfort in the knowledge that I am not legally responsible for the grown-up choices they make, because it doesn't exempt me from feeling the pain of the consequences they bear. Raising kids is just an ongoing evolution of breaking hearts. 

But it's worth it. Just like falling in love, knowing the life expectancy of any relationship these days is pretty pathetic, is still worth it. And you step up to bat again and again because those momentary highs are worth it, and even more, the people that you love, that you believe in, are worth it, even when they hurt you. Sure, there are limits. There's a time to pull the plug and walk away. There's even a time to disconnect the phone line and draw boundaries, but in this era of disposable everything, there are still people worth taking the hits for. There are bigger stories than the trauma of a moment. 

What parenting, and love, and being related to other human beings has taught me, is that heartbreak is survivable. It can be endured again and again and again. The real tell of a human being is whether they will get back up and love again after each break. The character of a person lives in their willingness to walk headfirst into the next round of heartbreaks for the people that they love. 

Even in the last few months I have felt the weight of heartache that I didn't think I could bear, and while I struggled to walk the steps of each day in the darkest moments, I knew it would not be my last time in that valley. I knew that I would run back into the fray, I would open up my barely healed heart and I would do it again, because there is no life without love. 

I know each time that I feel like I can't carry another burden for one of my loved ones, somehow there's a second wind and we pick up the pieces and move on. History has taught me that I am resilient, and hopefully that resilience is something that the people I love can learn with me, as we break each others hearts again and again with the mistakes we make. 

The only thing I can promise them is that I will never, ever, EVER, be caught up in a turtleneck craze, and they're always welcome at my potato stamp table. 

Things About Chasing Tail(s)

I've figured out that life is a never ending game of tail chasing. Either you're chasing someone else's tail or you're chasing your own tail of self-identity. If you're lucky, the game of chasing tail that does not belong to you will be short lived and the victory will remain for ages. Or, if you're like me, it's an endless game of both. Many of us find ourselves in the confusing world of perpetual self-tail chasing along with the constantly frustrating and disillusioning chase of tail that isn't our own.

I've got no advice to offer on the subject of chasing the tails of others since I have little success from which to draw, but I am gradually learning a thing or two about chasing my own tail. 

Lately (loosely translated: all the time in my whole life), I find myself in the midst of an identity crisis. When I was 19.5 years old it was the teenager fresh from the bunkbeds of a shared room with a little sister to the bumperpad-to-bumperbad cribs of two small infants in a studio apartment with a husband I barely knew. When I was 26 it was the almost-certified wildland firefighter banished from the practice controlled burn because it was "unsafe" for me at 6 months pregnant with child number four. At 32 it was the untapped teenage angst in the body of a single mom with four kids, three jobs and a full credit load of online college classes and a penchant for microbrews. I've always been seeking "myself," but it isn't until I got to be 41 that I realized that my "self" might be just as enigmatic to me as it was when I was three years old and climbing to the top of my Dad's Oak etageres to see if I could fly. But my "self" is also as familiar to me as the pillow I keep tucked between my arms every night. I know who I am. Sometimes, I just can't see the forest for the trees. 

Mark Manson talks about the diversification of identity, and I guess that's what I've always struggled with. I know how many things I am, and I know that a lot of those things don't fit the prescribed mold, or at least, not in the moment. Three year olds don't generally fly, even from a six-foot etagere. 19 year olds aren't the best mothers, unless they're a saint, like my younger sister might have been, or maybe even my Second Daughter given the chance (but thank you for waiting). Pregnant ladies aren't the best suited for wildland firefighters and 32 year olds should just stay away from microbrews, I've learned. 

But through it all I keep pushing, keep seeking"myself." And now I am 41. I am older and wiser and doing 41-year-old things. Going to my kid's ball games and graduation ceremonies. Paying my bills and having a savings account and learning the correct pronunciation for Roth IRA, etc. I wear jeans without holes (occasionally)(unwillingly) and craft lofty and condescending justifications for my tattoos. Deep inside though, I am still chasing my own tail. Trying to figure out just who I am, and the difference between what I WANT and what I NEED and who I AM. Those lines get blurry. But the definitive moment is always just barely out of reach. Like my tail.  

I always imagined that grown ups had no question about who they "are." They are just THEM. Doctors, teachers, mothers, transportation planners, rocket scientists. It seemed so simple. I thought maybe if I decided What to Be, that I would suddenly find this serenity and zen about self-identity that would once-and-for-all end my need to climb etageres. (By the way, if you haven't Googled etagere yet, you can click on the link.) But I've decided at least 23 times what to be when I grow up and I am still not completely sure that I can't fly. Because what IF?

So the tail-chase has continued. Sometimes I thought that if I caught the tail of someone else that I was chasing, I would suddenly KNOW. The epiphany of why I exist would descend upon me in an opaque and irrefutable destiny and all of my seeking would come to an end in the person that I belonged to. I'll admit, it seems to work for a year or two, maybe even close to a decade, especially if you bury your soul in the fabric of another person and/or community who Clearly Know What's Best For You and Don't Mind Telling You. But at the end of the day, or the decade, it's really up to you, or, in this case, up to me, to know who and what I am, and what's best for me, and if I know ANYTHING, it's that nobody can tell me What's Best for Me but my very own self. (I have at least 6 for-real psychologists who will back me up on this in their less-than-helpful-self-help-techniques. For a fee. )

But anyway, here I am, 41 and still chasing tail. Still slightly insecure about what I know about myself, but knowing, deep-down and just-the-same that I KNOW who I am. I am Liv. Not Liv the mom, Liv the firefighter, Liv the Writer, Liv the EMT, Liv the girlfriend, Liv the NOT girlfriend, Liv the former wife, Liv the messy, Liv the teacher, Liv the Cashier's Assistant, Liv the student, Liv the Avett Fanatic, Liv the emotionally unstable, Liv the self-aware (The psychologists told me that. For a fee.), Liv the beer girl, Liv the wannabe... I mean, yes, I AM all of those things... but I am not just one, I am every one, all of the time. And if Liv the writer is feeling angsty at Liv the mom's basketball game, then Liv the self-aware can take the steps to do what she needs to do and get the words out. And if Liv the former wife (please review my stern disapproval of "ex" terminology") is making a mess of Liv the girlfriend, or even Liv the NOT girlfriend, then Liv the self-reliant can make the adjustments she needs to make because ALL of those things in me have given me the tools to adapt. 

Chasing tail makes the world go 'round, as it happens, both biologically and psychologically. It's the ones of us that keep seeking and keep asking questions, like "Why am I cooking french fries at 41 years old?" that make life bigger than a single wide mobile home and a 1992 Ford Escort. Not that there's any shame in starting there, Daughter with said vehicle. 

Mark Manson, whom I clearly revere and tend to overcite, says that the idea of seeking your passion is bunk, because we're already putting our time into the things we're passionate about. For some of us, that's a 9-5 job that gets us where we need to be financially, a legitimate passion to pursue. For some of us, that's hours of journaling hopeless love letters that will be burned, unread at a later date. I know people in both camps - some more intimately than others, and I believe it's true that we put our money (read:time/energy) where our real passion lies. For me, when I get writer's cramp from journaling, it seems to be at the local brewery. I am not ashamed. I am me. And I've got some fine tail to keep chasing. Plus I MIGHT be able to fly. Who knows? 

Did I mention Liv the Whisky Drinker?

Things That Are Worth The Risk

Being in love is a lot like being drunk. And it's a good enough feeling that we go back over and over and over again (some of us do) for more, even though we know that heartbreak, like a hangover, is gonna sting like a mother-frakker and we're gonna swear that we'll never do it again. I've vowed off of love (and beer) repeatedly, but somehow, I always end up tottering on the brink of Going There one more time.

Some hangovers are just worth it, that's all. Even the worst ones that you think you'll never recover from. Because you're never gonna forget that one time that you NAILED What's Going On at karaoke, or sinking your ATV seat-deep in the sand out by the river at night, or the new dance you invented with your BFFs in a moment of Absolute Clarity after a shotski of fireball, if you remember those things in the first place. But seriously, can you hang a price tag on those good times with friends, any more than you can name the value of the butterflies you get when he leans in for the first kiss?.. Just brace yourself for the morning after, cause it's probably gonna hurt.

I've made all of the mistakes in my life - enough for me and all of my friends who 'courted' and missed out on the tragedy and triumph that is dating. I guess for better or worse, I traded 'for better or worse' for 'trial and error' and a lot of good intention and poor execution. It's not that I didn't want to stay married, really. I would happily be somebody's wife right now, if somebody could have just got his shit together. Clearly I am perfect, in case you hadn't noticed.

And being perfect, I have had a long line of perfect relationships, wherein I was never too clingy, too selfish, too moody or too demanding. Ever. Through no fault of my own, they ended, and the poor bastards that lost out in the end really had no idea what they were missing out on. But that's ok, because I just haven't met anybody as perfect as me yet, that's all. But I must still believe he is out there, deep down, because something makes me run back into the bloody fray that is hope and stand, battered heart in hand, wondering where he's hanging out. I've been checking the brew pubs and dive bars, since I didn't find him in the church groups and intentional communities. But I don't think that perfect guys hang out at perfect places. I think they're more like me and they're all over the place. It's just that my timing that has been terribly, horribly wrong for 38 years.

If I could list every time that I went a little out of my way, or took a little time I shouldn't have to stop into a random brewery, just to make sure I didn't miss out on the Best Beer In The World, well - I'd have to write a book, because I can't think of a time that I wished I hadn't. And I have had some of the Best Beers In The World, and met some of the coolest people, because I just did it, never a regret. Dating should be the same way. You never know when you'll run across the Best Beer/Man Ever, because you went a little out of your way or took a little time you shouldn't have. It's worth the gamble. I hope.

Maybe it's just that the ache of a broken heart has a familiar comfort to it. A reminder that I am actually alive. For a couple years now I have alternated between nursing old wounds and deciding that I would never, ever risk that damage again. But then I watch my young, pretty girls and I think that I would hug them, give 'em a kick in the ass and then send them back out to find love. And whether it's the springtime or beer, or the country music, or road trip season sneaking up on me with nobody to ride shotgun beside, I dunno - either way, it seems like it's time to take a gamble on some butterflies and risk the next morning, shaking my fist at god and Bad Decisions.

definitely worth the risk.