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Rebel Mom and More...

I'm back!  After my ever-so-long hiatus.  Conall Nicholas Turner was born October 15, 2009 and is now almost five months old.  And now that he is, I'm starting to find moments here and there to get back to my writing.  I've started by writing for Rebel Mom, a web site started by my friend Thara, wife of my dear friend Joel.  A web site for parents about anything but kids.  I will be posting my articles here after they run on Rebel Mom as an archive.  In addition, I will be expanding on some of the articles here as I've realized the subject matter I most want to explore - living true to oneself.

Here is my first Rebel Mom post:

ITunes University: Intellectual Stimulation?  There's an App for That

Short hiatus

Just marking the moment.  Tomorrow, I go to the hospital to have this baby!  It has been a long journey, but a longer one is about to commence.  Excited and nervous tonight...  Shall certainly be writing about the experience when I'm able to return to my computer.

But for now... signing off.  :-)))

Lost and Trapped, part 4: lesson 3

Lesson 3: A relationship is not a cure for what we lack within ourselves

I can remember the thought in my mind after the proposal, "And now, I will never again be alone."


Being alone.  At one time in my life it was my greatest fear.  I thought that if I could just find someone who loved me so much he never wanted to leave me, then I would be content.  The feeling I'd had for so many years that I didn't belong, that I was an outsider, would go away.  I thought all it took was finding that person who wanted to be committed to me forever.  


It took me nearly a decade to learn that what I struggled with - my insecurities, my loneliness, my fear of growing up and standing on my own - were all issues that I had to confront myself, sort through myself.  It took experience and soul searching to fill in the voids.  It took time confronting head on the things I had most sought to avoid.  I did not know when I was 22 that to feel better, to learn to appreciate life and feel true happiness, I had to sort through and banish my demons myself.  No one could do it for me.  And asking anyone else to take care of me - depending on anyone else for my sanity, the security of my soul - was dooming myself and that person to failure and misery.


So, why have I called all these posts "lost and trapped"?  Because I went into my first marriage too quickly and for all the wrong reasons.  And once I had committed myself, I thought there was no way out.  But I didn't understand why.


The first few years, as I tried anti-depressant after anti-depressant, as my anxiety and sense that all was lost grew, I thought I was falling apart despite having found what I most wanted (a husband).  I thought I was simply losing my mind.  The years took their toll on X as well and at a certain point (perhaps two years in) he too started changing.  There was very little semblance left of the man I had imagined marrying.  We stopped laughing.  He had always made me laugh, but as he drank more and became zealously religious and his behavior became increasingly erratic, I was finally able to see what had been evident all along.  My depression was not a chemical fault in brain... it was my environment, including (and mostly) X.


But getting divorced only started my recovery.

Lost and Trapped, part 4: lesson 2

Lesson 2: Wedding vs. Marriage


The second mistake I made was willfully confusing a wedding with a marriage.  As I mentioned, I met X in June, was in DC in July and he proposed when I returned in early August.  Now this felt, at the time, like Twilight Zone time - it seemed forever.  But obviously, it was very rushed.  He had begun talking about marriage in June, just weeks after we'd met.  And we were apart in July, so I could fantasize all I wanted about him and our life together without fact and reality interfering.


And here's what I fantasized about: what kind of ring would he buy?  What would my girlfriends say when I asked them to be bridesmaids?  Where could I start looking for a dress?  


Here's what I gave no thought to whatsoever: how well do I know this man?  Am I giving up too much to be with him?  What will I do with my life when I am back in Connecticut?  Would he sacrifice as much for me?  What will life be like with him in ten years?  How will I cope with how messy he is?  


So many of us girls dream of "getting married."  What we refer to in that dream (or, at least, what I meant by that) is the wedding day and the fact that we have a man who wants us.  Too few of us think long and hard over whether we want the man.  And what life will be like day after day, year after long year.


Some women fantasize about a doctor, lawyer or politician - someone with a job they admire or desire because of the associated wealth and power.  They want someone who will take care of them financially, buy them a house or take them on glamorous vacations.  Someone who will impress their friends or family.  Someone who will open up a social world they may desire.  They want a hero who will sweep them away to his castle on a hill where they'll live "happily ever after"  (whatever that means).


Too few women, I think, focus on the qualities they desire in a man: trustworthiness, loyalty, support, kindness, sense of humor.  Too few think about whether the man will expend his energy trying to make their lives better, happier, more fun, more fulfilled.  Whether he will fit in with the life they already have.  Whether he will support their dreams, or whether his focus will be solely on his own career and dreams.


Too few think about what kind of father the man would make - will he be an equal partner, or will he kiss the kids on the head after he arrives home late from the office or before he rushes off for another international trip.


We get caught up in the moment - the romance, the excitement of being loved and wanted, the status we might think it confers upon us.  We don't think about the substance of what we truly need to be happy.  We don't think of what we want in a partner.  What kind of a man do we want by our side in 5 years, 10 years, 40 years? 


The wedding lasts a day.  It is (or ought to be) an acknowledgement and celebration of a relationship - a lasting state - that exists between two people.  Not a goal in itself... not an end.  Because the wedding day does fly by... but I can't begin to describe how long life can seem when you are unhappy in a relationship and can't see any way out.  When every day is a small scrape of a disappointment, embarrassment or frustration.  When some days are a huge and painful battle. When you realize you've sacrificed your youth, your career, your children, yourself and must start try to start over at a time when you thought everything would be settled.


After, I learned that if ever someone were to propose to me again, I needed to pay attention to the following:  my gut reaction - was I filled with joy and happiness or was I a bit queasy?  could I see myself in love with this man when he is old, wrinkled and drooling?  could I imagine wanting to be with him in our home every day?  did he understand what I want from life and would he help me to achieve it?  did I understand what he wanted and could I support his dreams?  could I imagine always being attracted to him?


I thought of none of those things when X started talking about proposing.  I thought of wedding... not marriage.  And it was not long before I learned the difference and how serious my mistake had been.

Lost and Trapped, part 4: lesson 1

So I've told  the story of meeting and marrying my X, describing it as a significant (though necessary) mistake in my life.  The four years that followed were, in many ways, dark, lonely times.  Before I describe anything that happened during the marriage, I think it's important to identify clearly the mistakes I'd made to this point and what I've learned from them since.


1) The mistaken notion of love at first sight.
Don't get me wrong, I believe it's possible to see someone and know that they are going to be important in your life (that goes for friendship as well as love).  Intuition exists and can be very powerful.  In fact, when I first saw the amazingly wonderful man to whom I am now married, I was captivated.  Was it love?  Maybe not... but I lost my heart right away.


I think one can be "in love" at first sight; but that love - real, lasting, true love - takes time to grow.  I was certainly "in love" with X at the very beginning, to the extent that I knew what that was.  But we did not know how to love each other.  I did not love him for all his foibles and flaws; he did not love me for all my dreams and ambitions.  His world was centered around himself and he wanted to fit pieces into it that he felt he needed: wife, child, home, etc.  He did not expect to have to give anything to those responsibilities.  This isn't to say that he didn't care for and about me - just that he never really understood me, knew what I needed or how to give it to me.


For example, in the days before our final separation I tried to explain to him that it wasn't enough for him to tell me he loved me - to say the words.  I needed him to show me with his actions.  He didn't understand how to do this.  He sent a rosemary plant to my office ("rosemary for remembrance").  This was a nice gesture, but it didn't take much effort.  I suggested he could start by cleaning up our condo - allow me to live in an environment that I found pleasing, rather than one full of clutter, dirty clothes and a kitchen counter compost pile.  He said he couldn't do it - that he could never make the place as clean as I'd want it... he wasn't even willing to try.  He wouldn't pick up his dirty underwear to save his marriage.  This is what I mean... 


As for me, I didn't bother to get to know who I was marrying.  I was so ready to dive headlong into the idea of love without understanding what it meant.  I had no idea what real commitment was all about.  I truly believe that X went into the marriage with the intent to remain married for the rest of his life.  I think he was oblivious to much that was going on around him (on one of our last days together, he said with sincerity, "I thought we were happy."  I was flabbergasted as through the years he had suffered from alcoholism (probably caused by the strain of our relationship), had once physically attacked me, I had attempted suicide and been on anti-depressants, we had stopped speaking and spending time together and we hadn't had sex since the year we were married).  Blind to our "shortcomings" though he may have been, I believe he never wanted the marriage to end.  And I, who had been so careless about entering the relationship and the commitment, hurt him terribly by ending it.  For this, I have to take full responsibility.


If we had taken the time to get to know one another... if we not rushed into the engagement and the wedding (which was just as much my doing as his)... if we had spent a few years as a couple, learning about each other... I am certain we would have saved each other a great deal of heartache.  I am certain that we would have learned that we did not truly "love" each other - that we would have fallen out of love and would not have gotten married.  We might have been "in love" at first sight... but not the kind of love that grows and lasts.  


Love at first sight can't be trusted.  It can be acted upon... it can drive us to the right relationship.  But that relationship should be given time to grow in the light of day beyond the wooing period, without rose colored glasses.  Two years became my guiding time frame.  If you are still "in love" and do love each other whole-heartedly and without reservation after two years, you have a good chance, I figured. 


I believe a lot of women get caught up in first (often false) impressions created by the wooing period (trick themselves into believing it's "love").  Just before I met H (husband), I met a Frenchman (the Frog) in Washington Square Park.  It was Saturday morning, around 8:00 am and he was sitting across from me at the dog run.  His dog - a rather ugly Boston terrier with only one eye - kept running over to play with me.  The Frog moved to sit next to me and we ended up talking for hours.  When it was time to leave, he walked me most of the way back to my apartment, asked me to come to his place Sunday night so he could make me dinner, then kissed me.  It was only 11:00 am on a random Saturday and I was being kissed on a street corner by a handsome, rich, almost famous, very intellectual Frenchman.

I was certain that was the fairytale beginning of what would be a beautiful romance.  Only it very much wasn't.  I soon discovered he had a girlfriend in CA, he would only ever see me in his apartment and wasn't much interested in anything having to do with my life.

For several months I struggled between the fantasy my little brain had created upon our first meeting and the reality of my visits to the Frog's pad.  I had such trouble letting go of my initial romantic impression, no matter how often and in how many different ways he proved that impression to be wrong.  On paper, he was who I could see myself with and our first meeting was the story I wanted to tell.  But nothing that followed resembled a relationship about which I could be happy.

Why do we do that to ourselves?  Rather than thinking the initial meeting was an anomaly, I spent months wondering what I'd done wrong to change our dynamic.  Tried to figure out what I could do to get it back to how it was the first time we met when he was pursuing me.  Thought I had somehow screwed up and could change things if only I could figure him out.  Thought I could make him want what I wanted.

What I should have said after the second "date," was "that meeting in the dog run was a lovely New York moment, but it was just a moment.  This man is not who I thought he was that day.  Time to move on."  Because you can't live on one moment.  Too many bad relationships develop and continue because we make excuses for the other person; we remain hopeful too long; we refuse to see the truth about the person we are with.  We see them how we want to see them, not how they are.  Or worse, we keep hoping they will become who we want them to be and allow ourselves to be continuously disappointed by who they actually are.

Had I not rushed into an engagement with X, I would have seen fairly quickly that our interests and expectations were not the same.  Without the pressure of an "engagement" to call off, I might have had the courage to call a spade a spade and move on.  If I had known how much a relationship can change when the initial "wooing period" ends... when you stop trying to impress one another by being someone your not... I might have known X was not "the one."  

Relationships take effort, but that effort should make you happy much more often than not.  If you are not happy, secure and uninterested in being with anyone else, you are not in the right relationship.

It may have been love at first sight... but that's not love for a lifetime.

To be continued with Lesson 2