Car Euphemisms for Success (About the Career Stuff)

A thought struck me this morning lying in bed alone after The Mr. left to take The Kiddo to the airport that kept spinning and hasn’t stopped. It’s not quite 5:30am on a Saturday and I’ve already got my coffee in hand.

The thought was this: What if I had been raised in a different environment? What if I had been given more guidance, a better foundation and the opportunity to take a different road?

Don’t mistake this as a statement of regret. I have gotten this far by truly believing that it’s all for a reason. I know without a doubt that every detour, every flat tire and every car wreck have been part of my path and mine alone. I wouldn’t be here if I had made different choices. I took the long road and have paid heavy tolls to find a man who truly loves and respects me for all of my misfiring cylinders and rust spots under the pretty paint I keep reapplying… 

Guess my euphemism for the day is car-related rather than the usual food analogies I tend to steer towards.

The thought came about partly due to a profile on OkCupid. The guy is a lawyer that lobbies for reproductive rights and enjoys roller derby and burlesque. The physical attraction may or may not be there; I can’t be sure with the pictures. But he is the first person for whom the word “interesting” is not just a euphemism for… well, for anything where I’m left speechless and attempting to maintain tact. I looked at him and thought of what his family must have been like. I imagined a nice Jewish family where both parents were in the home and while they both emphasized getting good grades and going to college, at least one was a bit of a hippy that inspired him to be passionate about life. Just having that image makes me a little less inclined to respond to his message, simply because it could very well have been nothing like that. He could have come from nothing and had an internal drive to succeed on that front that I have lacked my entire life.

That’s another one of the great nature verses nurture debates that I don’t know has been brought up much. On St. Patty’s Day I nearly went to blows with a woman named Kris who made the statement that women who choose to stay at home to raise children not only do not contribute to society, but are a detriment to it. One of the only valid points she made that night was about how people that are raised to value education and the importance of careers are generally more successful in life. At the same time, her perception of what it means to be successful was a very narrow one that was only focused on college degrees, income and other resume fodder. Kris could not loosen her rigid, logical thinking to examine the possibility that anyone without a career was of any value to the world. She could not grasp the importance of having a home, providing a nurturing environment for children to grow up in, or even being the person to instill the value of education and career for your own children. She was also the self-proclaimed product of an environment filled with emotional abuse where education was the only measure of worth. Had we had that same conversation over coffee and not beer I might have looked at her with more sadness, realizing that her views on life were so far to an extreme that she saw anyone that chose to live in a different manner as worthless and harmful to society as a whole. Looking back I wonder how much of her venom was just slung out of defense for her own cracked foundations.

There I go making assumptions about other people. I suppose that’s one way we as humans try to make sense not only of the mechanics and science of the world, but of those who inhabit it beside us.

That said, it makes me a little sad for myself looking at the lack of guidance and direction I had growing up. Rather than a mother I had an older female friend that showed up every couple of weeks, lavishing my brother with attention and gifts then sharing things about life I was too young to know about. And rather than a father I could respect and look up to, I had a depressed, lonely old man that hid out in the garage tinkering with trucks and numbing himself away with substance until he became little more than a ghost walking around in the flesh. He was afraid of me, and of the strength that resembled the woman who had left him after 12 years of marriage. That woman bore no resemblance to the 18 year old girl he met and made his wife… But that is another story to tell.

For as long as I can remember, I have lived on instinct without a plan or goals. My only focus was on finding love, but I had no idea what that word really meant. It was a snipe hunt that I spent the better part of 33 years on. I would find something that resembled love and then endure the circumstances that came with it. I suffered immensely in an effort to keep something that was not only not mine, but wasn’t even love. I sacrificed myself over and over to maintain relationships that ultimately weren’t about me at all. I continued to lie at the feet of people that claimed to love me then wonder why I was being used as a doormat or an emotional punching bag. And even after I started to stand on my own two feet, I still had no idea what love was about. I added to the list of things I do NOT want, but to this day the other side of the list- the things I DO want, is far too short.

All the while I was searching for all the emotional things that Kris places no value on, but I had no attention left for the things in life that were all she could measure success by. When I finally did attempt the college thing I was just as good at is as I am at everything else I do. My GPA was great and until my divorce replaced my time to study with 2 full time jobs. I was finally on the track to have the pieces of paper that would allow someone like Kris to see my worth but all the emotional things started to catch up to me and it unraveled before even taking shape. Now I am 34 years old without so much as an Associate’s Degree, astronomical student loans given my income and a debt to the University of Phoenix that has all of the work I did accomplish being held hostage. My attempts to do the thing that would have shifted that part of my path in a better direction not only failed, but left me with even bigger obstacles in the way.

I’m not giving up, and I’m not looking back. I just wish there was a route ahead with a little less construction work to slow my progress on this path.

Addendum: 


The Mr. said that this piece felt unfinished because I never say that I found what I was looking for… I said that love, “was a snipe hunt that I spent the better part of 33 years on." 

I was 33 when I met him and that missing piece of the puzzle fell into place. The thing is that there are still other pieces I’m searching for.

This is about success and how people measure it differently depending on how they were raised. By some definitions I have more success than any Disney Princess with my ‘Happily Ever After.’

By other definitions I am an absolute failure.

The ExH's 2nd Wife: One of my Chick Issue Stories

Boundaries around here seem to be shifting, or at least loosening up a little. When The Mr. and I first got together, and more so when we first broached the topic of ethical non-monogamy I had a firm “NO CHICKS” rule. Not only does that mean we won’t play with females, but that there were to be no new female friends for him. I felt so strongly about not allowing females into our life that the idea of getting involved with a guy that had another girlfriend or consenting wife was off the table, even if we never met her.

My personal history of betrayal by other women runs very deep and very long. Two examples of this were the women that were my closest friends in my 20’s. One of whom ended up with The ExH living in her home in a shared situation with her husband. The other is legally married to The ExH to this day, but they’ve been separated for awhile. Either one of them could have had him and I would have simply said, “Good luck and be sure you get regular STI testing.” 

They both saw how things were in my marriage. They both knew about all the lying, cheating and the one time in my life that someone else’s business ended in a prescription. They were both women that I bonded with deeply and shared daily living space with for extended periods of time. They were family to me in ways that meant more than the blood relatives I haven’t seen in a decade. And they both went about things in such a deceitful, hurtful manner that I don’t speak to either one as of this day.

The ExH’s current wife, N, was our neighbor in Germany. She was pregnant with her only child and married to a man that did the same job as The ExH. She was a couple years younger than me and expressed once that she was jealous because I was a better cook and housekeeper than she was. We used to have uniform ironing parties in our kitchen together where I taught her how to use liquid starch and she taught me the easiest way to line the creases up. We would cook meals in both apartments with the doors propped open as we moved between the two kitchens as though they were part of one home.

Fast forward a few years and we are in Texas just a few blocks away from each other. Her marriage was ending and The ExH was getting ready to deploy. She needed a place to stay and I needed help while I recovered from a surgery I’d scheduled. She moved into the spare bedroom and rather than pay rent she took on the cooking and cleaning I was unable to do. We had the kind of non-sexual cuddling that I’d seen between sisters and best friends. Until N it had felt awkward to be near another woman like that. It was not uncommon for us to run around the house in our underwear, change clothes in the same room and even cuddle up on the couch while watching movies. She was my person.

Once I was recovered enough to start playing again, she and I partnered up in another manner a few times with a guy that ended up being a long-term friend with benefits of mine. Later we had another threesome with another long-term FWB of mine. I shared two of them more than willingly. The third one is a story unto itself. I was single by then and had feelings for him. She knew how I felt, but went after him anyway. I chalked it up to her personal issues and didn’t take it to heart. Much. I said even then that she wanted so much to be like me that she followed in my every foot step.

 Over the years we drifted in and out of daily contact and she moved an hour away to her parents’ place. Her psychiatric issues were getting worse, and when I would go see her it was apparent that she was abusing the medications she’d been prescribed. I had driven up to take her to Dr.’s appointments a few times and met a boyfriend or two along the way. At one point she was sharing an apartment with her younger brother, but he was kicking her and her son out. She was not able to work, and her parents had 'disowned her' yet again. My daughter looked at her son as a little brother, and N as another Mommy figure after the way we had all lived together. I had just ended a relationship and had a spare bedroom in my house again. It was My Kiddo that persuaded me to invite them to come down and stay with us to get on her feet.

The ExH and I were friendly at this point, and N had been like family to us both so it wasn’t weird to ask him to assist with the move. He had a truck and no full-time job. I was working a lot of hours and very much in the throes of realigning myself emotionally and financially after a year and a half with a guy and a baby in my home. That Tuesday, the ExH made his first trip to help with the packing. Wednesday they started filling my garage with her belongings and Thursday they completed the unpacking process and brought me sushi for when I got home from work. Having The ExH in my home like that was briefly healing in a way. We were able to be friends without the weirdness or the baggage some couples might have. He had begun flirting with me again not a week earlier, but he seemed to have accepted my flat-out ‘No’ and was okay to be my friend at last. 

Friday saw all of ‘the good’ and the familiar comfort end abruptly.  It was one of the hardest work days of my entire adult life. I had to assist in the firing of over 300 people, and then tell another 150 that they were furloughed for up to eight weeks. During the entire process I was waiting to be called into my managers’ office to be told that I was being demoted with a big pay cut. All of this, knowing that I had just agreed to help support a friend and her son on top of my own high school aged daughter. 

That night I went out for a beer with R, rather than go straight home. R was the woman that The ExH lived with for a year after we separated. When karma hit her by way of The ExH getting involved with and eventually living with her teenage babysitter I had allowed a degree of mending between us. Better to forgive and not hold onto the pain of betrayal, right? That was my take on it at the time. 

It was around 10pm when I pulled up to my house and saw The ExH’s truck parked in front. I was worn out mentally, physically and emotionally and then got hit with a wave of that old sensation I would get when The ExH and I were together and he was somehow ‘misbehaving.’ I walked in to find them sitting on my couch watching a movie. I remember going to my room and finding evidence of N's son’s hamster on my bed and being really angry, way angrier than was rational. I remember lying in bed with that same feeling of hurt, betrayal, abandonment, and anger I had lived with for all those years with ExH. Around 2am I got up to get a glass of water and before I made it down the hall, The ExH was on his feet in the doorway between the living room and kitchen hastily asking if I was okay and what was wrong. It was that same sign of guilt he always exhibited when he was lying to me about something and trying to cover up what he was doing. And what was wrong was that he was in my house on my couch with my friend at 2am when he had a home of his own only blocks away. His teenage girlfriend was still living there, but she was out of town that weekend so if they had wanted to spend time together they had somewhere to go. Instead, they were in my home doing, or not doing anything at 2am on a Friday night after one of the worst days of my professional life. 

Early the next morning I work up and sent him a text message: “Are you home?”

When he said yes, I replied, “Good. I’m coming over.” 

I know he was blindsided by the way I spoke to him. I rationalize and minimized his role in things due to the PTSD, the TBI and all the other acronyms he lives with after his time in Iraq. I tell myself that he is dumb and always had a crush on N and that he was looking for an excuse to get rid of his girlfriend. But N was none of these things. She was my friend and of all the ways she could have gone about things she did so in my home and on my couch. She was looking for someone to take care of her and she knew that she could use all of the things about The ExH she knew to achieve her goal.

That Saturday morning I stood on the porch of the home I had purchased with The ExH just as I had once before after I moved out and he moved R’s teenage babysitter in. I stood there shaking and crying with anger and he looked at me confused and unprepared for the venom that flowed. The end of it was simple, “Get her out of my house.”

I left for the day and told him to text me when they were done. That was the last time I spoke to N. 

A few months later my daughter sent me a message while I was at work. It said that they were getting married and wanted her to be in the wedding. She had formed her own opinion of N by this time. The ExH would invite her along for “family outings” with N and her son, who my Kiddo truly loved as a sibling. N would be high on her meds, smoking and drinking and yelling at her son. The ExH kept inviting My Kiddo to do things with them, but she refused to go anywhere with him unless he assured her that N would not be there. Not only did N’s behavior hurt me, an adult woman, but it added another chip to my daughter’s foundation as she saw what “friends” and “family” can do to each other. She saw how awful women can be to each other and all I can do is hope that she finds herself surrounded by better women than I have had in my life

.

The saddest part of it all is that sitting here now these things still sting. I can rationalize it all and use my ‘grown up brain’ to see why the people in my life did what they did. Realistically, hurting me wasn’t part of their agenda. They were each working on their own shit and didn’t bother to check for collateral damage. But N is only the most recent in a life-long story of women betraying each other. I have been determined to make it the last one and in doing so am closing myself off from ever being close to another woman like I was with N and with R. 

Just typing that made my grown up brain applaud and my girl-brain wince in pain.

I have been on both sides of this kind of story. I have been the mistress as often as I’ve been the scorned wife. I’ve seen both sides of this coin and know all too well what it looks like inside and out. I’m not sure how I’ll work through this one. I hate the idea of being so jaded, but at the same time women betraying each other has been so much a part of my reality that I cannot fathom a world where it is safe to trust someone like that again.

The Mr. recently became Facebook friends with the female Sub of a mutual friend of ours. For the first time in ages, my claws didn't come out knowing she had sent him a friend request and not me. I did not feel defensive, catty or weird at all about him making friends with another woman. This is a new place for me, and I know it's due to the amazing level of honesty, respect, trust and communication The Mr. and I have.

Food Euphemisms

The Mr. and I were having lunch with a friend last month and our friend happened to mention a gay friend of his in a story. During the conversation, it never dawned on me that anything was awkward or uncomfortable, but when The Mr. went to the bathroom our friend said that he felt weird bringing up gay guys and felt the need to explain that he did not have any issues with it, but is straight himself. He said that he thought The Mr. had been a little flirty with him and he didn’t want anyone to get the wrong impression. I explained that The Mr. doesn’t identify as ‘bi’ or ‘gay’ or anything like that. He and I have shared experiences with another man, and he did have some encounters with men when he was single but it’s not something he would deem a lifestyle. And yes, we both flirt openly. That's not always a signal of intent.

The thought crossed my mind that a food analogy would be the best way to describe it. “Enjoying a salad from time to time doesn’t make you a vegetarian, right? So why should enjoying sexual contact with someone of the same gender make anyone gay, or even bi-sexual?”

People in general are becoming more and more open to same sex relationships, but there is still a big taboo when it comes to male-male play. We once saw an invitation for a hotel party that specifically mentioned that there would be male-male play. The Mr. was so intrigued by the necessity of that addendum that he replied to the host asking why the notation was added. The response was along the lines that people are sometimes put off by male-male interactions in a group setting and the host felt the need to warn those who might be uncomfortable so they might choose to skip this particular gathering. I thought that the sex-positive, poly/swinger scene would be more open to all kinds of sexual expression, but it seems that male-male play is still taboo even there.

On the other side of the male-male play taboo there seems to be an assumption that females in the poly/swinger lifestyle are universally interested in female-female play. It’s a common thing that couples come into the lifestyle to fulfill her interest in other women sexually, while indulging the male fantasy of having two women at once. I feel like an anomaly in that I have no interest in any contact with another woman sexually. I barely tolerate other females socially at this point in life, so the idea of trusting one enough to get naked with is out of the question. I’ve tried it and it wasn’t for me. As a female in this community saying I don’t like pussy is akin to exclaiming ‘I hate bacon!’ Unless you’re surrounded by vegetarians you’re going to get some weird looks.

Food analogies seem to be the best way for The Mr. and me to describe how this part of our life works. We say that our relationship is the perfect meal. We are fully nourished and satisfied with each other. All of our needs are met, and if we never got naked with anyone else, nothing would be lacking. However, desert is always a nice treat! We agree that sometimes a little something sweet is nice to share. On that same note, I don’t like raspberries but the Mr. does. We both like cheesecake, so the agreement is that we only ‘order cheesecake.’ In that way, it seems a little less unfair and a lot more about sharing a treat we both enjoy, together.

We’ve heard people say that they are poly because one person shouldn’t be expected to meet all of another person’s needs. To me, it sounds like they crave a more varied menu than any one chef can prepare. Good for them if they are open to that sort of culinary adventure. I think that a big part of why The Mr. and I work so well together is that we both want the same deep level of attachment and familiarity with each other. Euphemistically speaking, we prefer our home-cooked meals but enjoy going out for desert together when the craving strikes.

As always, we find ourselves in ‘The Middle Layer‘ of things. The filling is as sweet as ever, but some days it seems that the frosting is all the rest of the world has on the menu.

Buttons and Switches

For the last 3 weeks or so I have been miserable. Everything has sucked and nothing could make me happy. My brain was in over-drive, narrating my every waking moment and continuing on long into the night when I should have been sleeping. The job stress has felt unmanageable, to the point where all I want to do is quit and start replying to any and every craigslist help wanted ad in an effort to just do something else. And then we went away for 4 days on what should have been our vacation. 

Instead of down time, we had nursing home visits with Uncle T and more impending grief in the form of The Other L’s breast cancer diagnosis. We had button-pushing, issue stoking, and emotional-pot stirring. All the big stuff like Uncle T’s downhill slide and The Other L’s scan results coupled with little things like how The Mr.’s cousin M reminds me so much of an ex that it brings back memories better left forgotten, and the fact that the family calls The Mr. by his middle name as he was always known growing up. When I met him, he had started going by his first name, and the first time I heard him called the other name was when I met his ex-wife. Now every time I hear that name, I see her face and all the alimony he’s paying. I spent 4 days deliberately not calling my husband by any name at all.

Something flipped for me while shopping for jeans in Boston. My favorite pair finally wore through in the thighs so I needed a new summer pair. After multiple failures with denim I grabbed a dress and decided to try it on. I walked out with 2 summer dresses and a long skirt. For the first time in 3 weeks I felt happy and relaxed. It wasn’t anything major, but the small victory just unhinged something and I was able to turn down the noise in my head for the first time in weeks. My change in mood was perfectly timed, because shortly after my positive shift, The Mr. got hit with it all. He’s lost his appetite and just can’t seem to feel okay. We went to the movies yesterday and by the time we got home he had taken a Happy Camper and one of my Xanax and couldn’t finish his dinner.  This is where he and I are alike in a bad way- neither of us cope with stress in a healthy manner. 

We are in too deep with each other to help, and we still haven’t really found our people. The Mad Scientist has been the only genuine, established friend we’ve found here, but life is happening and I find myself thinking of him in the past tense more and more.

Today I’m coping by getting my fat ass out of the bed and stuffing it into my swim suit. The scales made me cry, despite not noticing any changes in my clothes, so I’m going to spray on the sunscreen, wet and braid my hair and go to the pool. This weekend we are going to check out a local roller skating rink that has an Artistic Skating Club I’m geeking out about. Next weekend the teenager leaves for two weeks in Texas. I’m clinging to the hope that the job stress will be more manageable while updating my resume in anticipation that it won’t. Uncle T had a little bit of a fund for the kids, so The Mr. was handed an envelope on our last day in Boston with double what we’ll need to get my car worked on. That’s been the number one ‘grown up reason’ to suck it up a little longer. It has to get better, because I said so, DAMMIT!

Opening the Box

What if you were given one year to live and a blank check? What would you do? 

I have been intolerably stressed out over how much I hate my job and struggling with figuring out what to do about it. That thought struck me in the shower today. What if I was only given a year to live and a blank check? What would I do? Like so many people out there my first thought was to quit my stressful job and be with my loved ones. I would start throwing around the L-word like glitter at a fairy convention. I would enjoy all the rich foods and luscious wines of the world. I would surround myself with beautiful things and kind people. And I would try to remember my own life.

Something I’ve struggled with for as long as I can remember is my terrible memory. Funny, right? If I didn’t write it down, it may very well have never happened after a certain length of time. The exception to that rule is anything that hurt, I remember with nightmarish vividness and often at the most inopportune moments. Little things like a smell or a food will transport me back in time to a place where I was in pain and it takes me an extra second to get a grip on myself and come back to present time. I jokingly blame the excessive marijuana smoking I did in my early 20’s for my memory issues. Sadly, I know that it started long before that. And that’s why I have always written. 

Through all my moves a box of notebooks full of my writing has followed me. A few years ago I invested a few bucks at an Army surplus store and bought an old fashioned cammo-green footlocker. It’s just a wooden box with a latch that is designed for a padlock to secure it, minimalist handles and “US” stenciled on the top. Inside I have all of my journals dating back to the late 80’s when I was still in grade school. Some of the notebooks were written in pencil and have faded away. The rest are inked in ball point pen with photos taped inside and names with hearts around them on the inside cover. There is a paint can that my 8^th grade boyfriend used to give me a ring in filled with photos and school ID cards. There are folders of scattered writing from notebooks I’d start then repurpose for less personal things like school work. I would carry these notebooks with me to school, to work, to doctor’s appointments- anywhere that I might have time to wait around and observe things. They are the daily scraps of life that I’ve recorded out of habit from childhood. 

Years ago I dug into the box and tried to re-read them. I organized them by date, labeling the covers numerically so I would be able to read them in order. I remember being really sad when I attempted to go through it all. I wasn’t sad because of the things I was reading, the topics I focused on at such an early age, or even the morbidly depressed suicidal ideations held in those pages. I was sad because I didn’t remember any of it. I would be writing about a crush from math class, a friend I had gone to the park with, or a teacher I hated. I wrote about them by name without any explanation of who they were beyond the daily interactions I was writing about. There were countless names without faces and locations that I simply had no memory of at all. It was like reading a page from the diary of someone I had met once in passing who lived in the same town I did. None of it felt like a part of me. 

Knowing what I’m facing when I open the footlocker, it’s with trepidation that I announce my plans. This is big. This is scary. This is the life’s work people talk about finally undertaking after a terminal diagnosis or near death experience. This is the thing I have talked about doing for as long as I can remember, and longer than that even.

The Mr. moved the box from the bottom of the new stack of boxes he just created in the sunroom. When we get back from Boston next week I will begin the process of digitally documenting it all. I will treat it as a clinical experiment, an impersonal archeological dig, or just an exercise in improving my typing skills. Once it’s all in digital format I will start again from the beginning and write about everything I have written about. I will piece it together like a puzzle and fill in the gaps of time with whatever fragments of memory I can find. I will rediscover my own foundations and take a fresh batch of cement to the holes that even today, cause a slow leak in my soul. These are the cracks that I used to try to fill with sex, with booze, with the ‘Naughty’ and the ‘More, Now, AGAIIN!’ cycle of my 20’s. 

This will be the ultimate navel-gazing experience.

In the end, my goal is to finally figure out what I want to be when I grow up. Or maybe decide that I don’t want to grow up. Or maybe the thing that will prove that the only thing I’ve ever wanted to be when I grow up CAN earn me a paycheck and a living that will finally let me enjoy the amazing LIFE I have finally found.

Either way, this project will be an accomplishment I will be proud of even if nobody ever sees a single sentence. 

But who am I kidding? I’ll be blogging about it all starting time Meow!