Good Afternoon! I would like to announce a few things.
The first is that the print copy of my book “I Know Why They Call a Shell a Shell,” will be coming out soon and I definitely want to do a giveaway/ contest. I will keep you posted on this.
Next, make sure you keep an eye out tomorrow for Linda’s new post, “I Wrote This Because You Loved Me.” The post is a touching and transcendental tribute to her beloved sister.
I had found it under your bathroom sink again. I found it behind your printer once. I found it in your file cabinet. I hated that you hid booze in the house. Once you poured it out. Once you let me put it in the cabinet. Once it killed you.
I put the last four bottles I found under the bathroom cabinet in the back closet. Then I cleaned that closet out and put the Vodka in the kitchen cabinet. It has been there a couple months. Tonight I am having a cocktail. A Pineapple/Vodka drunk. An ode to your life. A time to take you away from this world and out into the universe. Unfortunately the crash back to earth is not worth it. I don’t like the payback but you didn’t seem to mind.
It took me all this time to buy some Pineapple juice. Today at Walmart I found some cheap and that is just what I wanted. You and I had wonderful fun with our Pineapple Cocktails. We added a red cherry to mine and you switched to Grapefruit Juice because you were that kind of guy. We loved our cocktail hour. We loved to play but you had to have more. You had to have a pint of this Vodka a day. A pint. You wanted to transcend. So tonight I am transcending in your honor. Tonight I am remembering the joys of alcohol.
I remember standing by the window in the parlor looking at the evening sky in the Blue Hour. It was the winter of our first year and I loved standing in the empty room watching the colors change before my eyes. I never noticed in L.A. or San Francisco, was I too busy, too young, was it smog? What the hell was I doing in middle of nowhere Minnesotain winter on a farm, broke, bruised, tired and so damned cold. Memories that flash like photographs, still frames of my life that suddenly become a movie in my mind.
That day the snow was different, it looked like whitecaps on the ocean from the wind, the sun had warmed the top then nights froze the waves in place. There was a crust and I’d gone out to walk on it earlier, to feel it crunch and see how far I sank. God how you laughed at me, sinking thigh deep and struggling, the stubborn woman who wouldn’t turn back. Get it while I can, enjoy what I have, this new world and life I chose with you. I’m cold and tired but I have a new world. No, we have it.
Like the nights I had off in summer and fall when the colors soften and change, the birds settle in and the world gets quiet, I waited to watch that unbroken ocean of white. There were so few nights off during the Holidays but this night I had my time and my sights, I’m a watcher and magic is free. Slowly the night turned Indigo, deep, heavy purple-blue and the world was still early, no voices, no birds, no tires on the highway. Finally the yard light came on and I saw it, the ground sparkling everywhere I looked. It was as if someone had thrown millions of diamonds across the acre of lawn. It took my breath away and I stayed standing in the dark room, I didn’t want to look away.
It has been a very stressful last several months for me. Care taking for others has been taking its toll on me and now I get some very sad news.
When I was a child I had a stuffed animal. I held onto it so much that eventually, it began to fall apart. There was only so much my grandmother could do to patch it back together. There was many a leg-transplant and arm transplant. And the patches she made couldn’t sustain the continuous amount of holes that kept cropping up. One day I retired it, I was too old and it was also too old. It was a sad day nonetheless.
My old pal Sandy- or what now can only be described as a rag doll
Today I am going to talk about Rihanna and how she is rumored to be back with Chris Brown- how did that happen?
There is so much stuff going on psychologically in an abusive relationship that I could talk about it for days (and probably will if you let me, ha). When Rihanna was successfully removed from the Chris Brown situation, it was not entirely on her own accord, but through court ordered restraining orders and likely the intervention of family and friends. The fact that she did not willingly choose to leave has a lot to do with why she’s back.
She went on Barbara Walters shortly after the relationship was over, and after hearing her peace, we all believed that she was done but did she? Usually a person knows when it isn’t over and that is why they go back months, and in Rihanna’s case, years later. The longest I was away from an abuser was a month or two and then I went back. It was through intervention of family and friends that got me out of one of the relationships and almost being murdered that got me out of the other. The first guy I was with, who was also abusive, I walked out of on my own, but my strength apparently went downhill from there. So wouldn’t one or more years be enough for Rihanna to gain enough perspective to get away? You would think so.
When you’re in an abusive relationship, deep down you know something’s not right, that it’s not the right person for you, and that you are doing the wrong thing. However, you are paralyzed to do anything about it mainly because for one reason or another, you’ve become invested. You have given away a part of yourself to this person and you are not ready to give the relationship up, because in your mind you believed by giving the part of you that you gave, you earned the partnership, so why should you let them go now? The more drama and the more issues of theirs you put up with, the larger your investment becomes and the only interest you earn is the opportunity to hang out with them. You think that they want to be around you after all you’ve done for them but then they push you away- and you can’t wrap your mind around why.
Now here comes the second facet of this scenario, they leave you- or leave you hanging. They cheat on you, hit you, call you a bitch, cunt, fat, and you stay. You stay and you cry and cry. The pain caused by their words and actions is agonizing because let’s be honest, both of you know that you’re not going anywhere. So in the midst of your tears, somewhere in the back of your mind is this realization, this knowledge that you will be staying for the duration regardless of what they do or what names they may currently be calling you.
Sooner of later, when your mate is done blowing off their steam or maybe they’re bored, they come around. They might even apologize- though usually, it’s more of a pathetic excuse for an apology than anything. The sea is calm again. You’re exhausted but feel the physical relief that comes when the tears have finally stopped. You sniffle a little, your tears are drying up, your body is tired. The both of you spend the night cuddling on the couch watching whatever show he wants to watch. He hands you the remote control and urges you to choose something, “Really?” you ask, shocked and honored, as if you’d just been handed the key to the Crown Jewels of something.
You vaguely remember having the same dynamics with your mother or father. The way they abused you when no one was around. The way they acted wonderful and charming in public, to family and friends, always made you sick, even though someone would’ve thought you were to young to comprehend what was going on, you did. For days the abuse continued, and you begged them to stop, begged them. They caused you that same feeling- the crying that never ends-sense of urgency and panic-feeling. Then when they were tired or bored they started to be nice to you again, for a few minutes at least. The second you fell into their placation the abuse started all over again, as did your attempt to appease them.
So why do people end up in abusive relationships? Because when abusive dynamics are the same dynamics that have bonded them to their parents, their brain has grown to believe that abuse is actually love. The abused brain has never experienced love from their parent- the typical thing that bonds one to their mother or father- instead they have been trapped and bonded to their parent within the cycle of abuse. Therefore, the cycle is actually comforting and familiar to the abused in an abusive relationship.
So that is why Rihanna thinks that what she has with Chris Brown is love. I understand where she’s coming from, but she really needs a conservatorship so someone can legally lock her in her room til she comes to her senses, the man beat her face in already, he is not going to stop there. So now that she is back, you are probably wondering why. So back to the investment I spoke about I the beginning. She has made an emotional investment in him and in a relationship- a relationships that she knows is very dysfunctional and wrong. The longer she stays in this dysfunctyional relationship that she knows is wrong, the longer she feels she has to stay in the long run, for a few reasons.
Firstly she is trying to prove herself right and everyone else wrong. She is trying to justify her choice to be there and is intent on staying until she has proved to herself and the world that it was a good choice. Mainly, she is staying out of guilt. There is likely something “wrong” with her- not just Brown. It is likely that like most of us, she is damaged and has confided in him some type of mental issue or something very upsetting and personal that happened in her childhood. It is also likely that when she told him about it, he listened sympathetically and even metaphorically took up arms against whomever had hurt her in the past. This gesture has helped her heal a bit, as far as the previous issue was concerned, and because of it she feels that she owes him because he helped her. She subconsiously does not want to leave him because she feels guilty about doing so because of all he did for her regarding her past pain and helping her work through it. This is also why she feels that others don’t understand their love- they ave never seen this sympathetic side of him, which he has moreso shown to her in order to keep her rather than to help her. She doesn’t realize this and believes he has been sincere. She doesn’t want his help to go in vain and she doesn’t want to break up with him because that makes her feel like she was using him to be comforted- which maye she was- but she doesn’t want to admit that to herself, the world, or him, so instead she will just stay and this is the biggest reason she got pulled back in.
They were unwillingly seperated, so when he came sniffing back around she was too weak to stay away from him because subconsciously she felt indentured to him because of whatever he’d helped her with. There is a large guilt componenet in abusive relationships in general, and this is where it comes in. It is guilt not love that brings women back into a situation with an abuser and guilt that keeps them asking for more.
I think Adele’s video, “Set Fire to the Rain,” is a great example of a typical abusive relationship. It is actually difficult for me to watch, but I like this song… It does a very good job depicting the typical dynamics, the physical abuse, the screaming, punching, pushing, but what’s even more important is that it depicts the “making up.” The “making up” part of an abusive relationship is by far the sickest facet of the entire dynamic. In fact it is so painful to be without this person, the very person who causes the pain because, consequently, they’re also the only one who can make it go away- now that’s what I call a dilemna. Try putting up with this awful cycle for months and even years and tell me how your health is faring- non-existent I would say. If they don’t kill you,there’s a good chance you will kill yourself on purpose or by accident. 1 in every 5 female murder victims in the US are first victims of domestic violence.
For all the times somebody broke my heart, I’ve broken my heart three times over. What am I talking about you ask? Coveting. I should’ve paid attention in Sunday school (sorry, Mrs. Fredericksen), as I’m pretty sure there is a Commandment against this. Coveting is worse than it sounds, in fact I didn’t even realize that I’d been doing it for all these years.
I am the master if relationships- relationshipsin my mind, that is. I meet a guy, date him, talk to him, things are all around going well. In my mind, however,I am already picturing the progression of this not-even-a-relationship’s relationship. In my mind I am imagining how he is going to fall hard for me, so hard that it will pain him to be away from me for long. On top of that, I picture that he will be a guy who actually treats me with respect, for once.
It starts off good, but then suddenly comes a landslide and he falls off of a cliff. He stops calling. I can’t figure out why. Doesn’t he want everything to fall into place the way I’d pictured it? Doesn’t he want to fall in love with me and see how wonderful and caring of a person I am? Especially to a guy who deserves my adoration… Doesn’t he know what he’s missing? Doesn’t he want to go with me to Vermont for the weekend like I’d planned we’d do in a month or two? And what about Valentine’s day? Wasn’t he going to be my date? This is my internal dialogue, I want to make that clear. He did not disappear because I vocalized this, no. These thoughts never left my mind, until now, of course.
*** This is an excerpt from my book about failed relationships coming out at the end of the year!
I remember when I was in elementary school one of my friends told me that when she was on vacation in Disney World if someone asked where she was from and she told them she was from Connecticut, they immediately assumed she was rich. I was perplexed. She had an in-ground pool but certainly didn’t live in a gated community. Our families were predominately from Waterbury, Connecticut, a remnant of the long-gone industrial era.
I discovered when I went to an out of state college that what she said was true, that when you tell people you are from Connecticut they assume you live in a neighborhood on par with one of the most affluent ones in Greenwich. Years ago I had never been to Greenwich and wondered what this place was like. The richest town in the entire country would surely be something to see. I imagined that I would be pegged an outsider from the second my 2001 Kia Sportage crossed over the city limits. I was very wrong.
I got a job working for a holistic beauty company and had to go to various health food retailers. Now I had to drive down towards the Gold Coast for work at least once a month. My first experience there was good and it really hasn’t changed since I began working in that area.
One day I answered an ad on Craigslist. They needed bartenders and servers. I sent them my resume and a picture and was hired immediately and asked to come down the next day. Not only would I be bartending in Greenwich, but on a yacht! I would be lying if I told you I was excited. No, I reacted as I usually do when something really great and exciting happens in my life: I was terrified! I had never answered an ad on Craigslist before and feared it wasn’t legit. A yacht? Really? As usual, I pictured worst-cases-scenarios in my head; the yacht taking off with me and other unsuspecting young “bartenders” on it, carrying us out to sea awaiting some sort of mass-auction, our introduction into sexual slavery. Yes I know, I don’t deny that I’m a little crazy. I lived on the Mexican border for a year and never ventured south for the same reason. It’s funny, how someone who has lived to tell the tale of so many risky and dangerous events can be so scared and cautious. I would wager that it is because I lived to tell the tale of so many risky and dangerous events!
Okay so it’s still a bit taboo: online dating. Since I work from home 90% of the time, online dating has been an effective way to meet members (or at least talk to) of the opposite sex. Everyone told me not to do it but as usual, I found a way to rationalize it and convince myself that it was a good idea. Half the people I work with I’ve never met in person. I have never met any of my editors, colleagues, or readers and from what I know of them they all seem like pretty stellar people. So what’s wrong with meeting potential dates online?
Well as it turns out it is different and the same. For one, it differs from the other people I’ve worked with online in the sense that they were decent and the guys I met online all seemed to be self centered man-children. Yet it is similar to actual dating in the sense that 99% of the guys I meet in “real life” end up being jerks. Online 100% of the men I’ve met (thus far) have turned out to be jerks. Statistically the success rate of relationships with men I met online is virtually the same as the success I had with the men I met in person. Shocking, I know!
Though the experiences I’ve had since I began online dating would make a great book, today I’ve decided to share with you some of the highlights of my online dating experience. So below is my Top Ten List of My Most Stellar Online Dating Experiences
For a while I have been thinking about free will versus destiny. I believe that in a way they both exist, but I also believe that using free will isn’t always in your best interest. I see destiny as the path you’re meant to take and free will as the option to go off course. In my experience, going off course has only led to set backs, that for myself, resulted in wasted money, time, and opportunities. I had the free will to do what I wanted, to go off my path, and made decisions that I knew were bad for me at the time. I did what I wanted, and ultimately destiny’s pull was too strong to resist, and I ended up back on it’s path. I believe that following your destiny is in your best interest, and that while free will exists, utilizing it is not always a good idea. Below is an example of what I’m talking about.
