Untitled II – Connection

“Your profile looks like bad medicine.  Bad medicine is what I need.”

Someone wrote this to my friend Roxanne.

What can we tell about this person?

1. Bon Jovi afficionado

2. Has the written cadence of the Fonz.

3. Not going to be getting a date anytime soon.

The third makes me sad.  We will never know what Mr. Bad Medicine eats for dinner or what music he plays in his car.  We will never know what kind of Mother’s Day card he sends to his mum.

*

Guy at Party: Are your breasts real?

Tessa: Huh? Yeah.

Guy at Party: Do you want to go shooting some time?

*

My friend Julie was dolled up for a date.  Her beau of three months came to pick her up, said he was tired, and asked her if she was okay “hanging out” at his apartment. Now, to me and the planet, this seemed like a euphemism for some hot and steamy sex.  Julie really wanted to go out before the hot and steamy sex, but she knew his life was hectic and so she agreed. Their date?  She sat on the couch watching Futurama.  He snored.

Now while this might be a serene date once the newness wears off, and this might even be intimate.  But this wasn’t his first nap!

Although both may ultimately involve beds, the man needs to learn Dating Time does not equal Napping Time.

*

Ariel:  It was so nice to meet you the other night.  I’d like to see you again.

Tessa: Me too.  I really had fun.

Ariel: Do you like movies?

Tessa: Sure.

Ariel: We can see a movie.

Tessa: I’d love to.

Ariel:  I’ll bring over a DVD and we can watch it at your house.

Tessa: Huh?

*

Julie made her man roasted chicken and a plum pie.  A chef whom is rarely cooked for—he relished every bite.

*

Adam hates trees.  Well, not really so much as he hates hiking.  He let me take him hiking up in Pt. Reyes where we proceeded to find a newly dead deer, body picked clean, head fully intact.  The deer’s eyes were clear, as if they pleaded, “remember me.”

Adam is also not fond of camping.  After the dead deer incident, we went camping in West Marin.  We hiked, we cooked.  After dark, we stood on our picnic table listening to something large chase and kill something small.

The next time we went camping, he brought a gun.

Just kidding.

But he went again, he loved me.

*

Bowling.

Just cuz.

I scored a 62.  And another date, miraculously.

*

Margot’s love used to bring her a muffin every morning.  If she were away, he’d tack the muffin (it was in a bag) on her front door so she’d find it when she returned from the gym.

We don’t call him muffin boy anymore.

*

Yummy rustic bread.

That’s all Joy can really remember about this romantic date at a restaurant near a lake, but she remembers the date was a marathon she didn’t want to end.

*

We went mini-golfing under the flames of LA.  After a tie game, he beat me at every arcade game.  We chose the meekest child to give our winning tickets to.  Note to self: meek kids are cute, but they don’t say thank you.  They are too stunned by giant adults leaning down and handing them the ticket equivalent of a stuffed teddy.

He made a picnic dinner—we shared cold salmon and pesto with a crisp sauvignon blanc.  We chased the fire, we shared the stories of our year apart, and began to reconnect.

Reconnect.

*

There are good dates to be had.

The Perfect Whirling Dervish

Today, in school, I counted 11 seats in the front row.

My cat has fleas.

Don’t sleep with a student.

Two are facts; another advice, quite patently obvious if you ask me.

I wish the director had advised on killing fleas. That would have been helpful.

But no, he told us that if we went to a fraternity party, we should leave if we saw one of our freshmen students drinking.  We all laughed, what loser professor attends a college fraternity party?

Yes, yes, I am seeing someone younger.  But he is a full two years out of college.

And he was never in a fraternity.

That, I am sure, puts your mind at ease.

The director talks of us growing as teachers, professors.  

For the past ten years, my average evaluation is 4.9 out of 5.

How much better need I be?

Perfection.

perfection |pərˈfek sh ən|

noun

the condition, state, or quality of being free or as free as possible from all flaws or defects

When I get  a 4.8 on an evaluation, I call my friend Margot and lament the student who thought my communication skills merited only a 4 out of 5.  “Am I not articulate enough?”  I scour the class sessions and remember any off moment.

“It must have been that day I garbled my words and sounded like W,” I tell my friend.  “To make it worse, I laughed and told the class, ‘I sound just like W.’  She was probably a republican and thought I was being partisan.” 

Not just factual. 

Or, I continue to my friend, “was it the time I didn’t know the answer to the student’s question, and instead of admitting the truth and turning the question over to the class, I flubbed it and bullshitted an answer?”   

I stayed up all night after that mistake.

I blather, “was it after I stayed up all night, thought through a great answer and called the student at home to tell her?”

“No,” my friend Margot says. “That wouldn’t have affected your communication skills evaluation.  Was there a place on the scantron for stalking?”

*

I have a problem with perfectionism.  Don’t mistake this for being detail-oriented.  Just count the typos in this blog.  I hate typos, and the people who make them.  I see sloppy proofreading as a character flaw.  But I can’t seem to stay focused long enough to catch them all.  It’s just so much easier to self-loathe.

I am a perfectionist who loves to say yes—I love the learning curve; sure, I’ll try that!  I would love to teach another class!  I would love to write that!  I would love to be in that book club!  I would love to see you again!

And I love to excel at all I say yes to.

The result isn’t always pretty.  Think Tasmanian Devil clad in tight jeans and a black tank top dancing as a Whirling Dervish. 

Now put her in a university setting.

Or in front of a computer screen writing.

Once, in such a moment, I was teaching a class, pacing to and fro in front of the seminar room.  I had just given the students a huge assignment—I needed to carry the assignments in a banker’s box.   I wrote something on the board, cracked a joke and backed up to make my final point. BAM.  I fell butt first into that damn box.

Legs and arms flailing, I kept talking.

At least I knew all my students were paying attention.

So herein lies the dilemma.  After one year where all my time was spent grieving the loss, teaching a small class-load, crying over Adam, noodling my novel, and sitting in therapy, I’ve signed on for a makeup year. 

Bring in the Whirling Dervish costume.

The mistake was probably made when I signed on for three commitments at one university, one commitment at another. . . all while attending grad school in creative writing, redrafting a novel, and writing a blog.

Er, not to mention seeing Matthew.

This year’s goal?  I am not, not going to embrace perfectionism. 

My best will be good enough.

Mantra.  Say it again.

My best will be good enough.

Do you feel my relaxed attitude toward life?

Can’t you sense my Zen calm?

Can you glean the control I feel over my emerging new life?

And so here it is, just when I’ve got it all under control.

Adam is back.

 Stay tuned…

Intermission: Be My Match

My Christmas and Chanukah gifts are chosen this year. I am giving everyone 11,002 Things to Be Miserable About, by Lia Romeo and Nick Romeo.  Broken condoms and dead puppies made the list.  As did global warming, untreated sewage and lawyers.

Misery is listed in random order (Chlamydia is right before Your Childhood), unless authors Lia and Nick concluded that Chlamydia, the quiet VD, was just one iota more miserable than Frank Lillo seeing my underwear in the fourth grade and telling everyone they were diapers. [They weren’t.]

Butt acne.  On the list.  That would, indeed, make me miserable.

And this gets me to my point today.  So many of my friends use internet dating services—nerve to eharmony.

Over the years, I’ve helped market my friends—writing that first intro, crafting lists of interests and desires.

Yet after the basic stats, most of these “ads” have similar themes. Something clever, something earnest, something vulnerable, something dreamy, something fun.  

No one writes, “I compulsively pop pimples, so I don’t mind butt acne.” 

Most of my friends list their traits and the traits of their desired as smart, well-traveled, intellectually curious, liberal, good sense of humor.

Save the political view, who would want the opposite of this? “Dumb and xenophobic stoic desires same in mate”? Who writes, “I love global warming, untreated sewage and Chlamydia”?

Sure, you want someone who reads, enjoys hiking and appreciates good food. 

But after a few years together, what do you really want?

 As we age, we want someone to overlook the gray hairs and the stray hairs.  We may even want someone to pluck them.

 While I’m not yet in the ranks of internet daters, I’ve given this some thought.  Here is a rough draft of my personal ad:

Wannabe intellectual who gets by on fair amount of smarts seeking same only with some cash on hand to do the pretentious things she wants to do but can’t afford to do and refuses to sell out to do. 

Must tolerate serious mood swings at that time of the month, although you cannot blame it on that time of the month. 

Must like having back pimples popped.  Any pimples really.

Hiking, traveling, New Yorker reader, progressive or more, but don’t be too PC or I will mock you.

Understand sarcasm and irony.  And the difference between them.

You believe hair product is not a total necessity in life.

Your answer to “I feel fat,” should be truly responsive.

You like to clean more than I do, so housework is split according to who likes to mop more (hint: you do). 

You must not object to cat sleeping under covers and spooning you. 

Must enjoy some nagging.

You can’t want me to breed.

You find persnickety, opinionated vacillators an endearing challenge:  “I don’t care.  Thai or Mexican, whatever you want.” . . .“You want Mexican?  Oh, I really think I want Thai now.”

Your family should probably be as dysfunctional as mine or I will feel weird.

*

Margot is visiting and so I made Margot list her desires.  After I forced her to go deeper than smart and well-traveled, she came up with this:

Daily foot massage.

The ultra-feminist she is, she wants a handyman who knows what to do with a car.  He must like to build things. 

Must love her cat—and the cat, Camille, must feel loved.  This is not because Margot is a crazy cat woman, this is because Camille will urinate all over Margot’s bed if Camille doesn’t feel appropriately loved. Margot has been through many comforters.

Must be as obsessive about working out as she is.  Note on this: Her current boyfriend was normal.  In great shape always.  Now he often complains, “I feel fat.”   For Margot, this is love.

Must be tolerant of shoe collection and her revulsion to Keds. 

Cannot expect her to wear hair in ponytail, suggestion to do will so may result in death.  Costume lover preferred.

Willing to always be wrong.

So.

In reviewing these lists, I thought I’d also inform you that Margot and I have a retirement plan with one another in case our matches don’t work out.

Get Thee To A Nunnery: The Finale

Bile.

Diarrhea.

This was not the way I wanted to re-lose my virginity.

The first night with Sam passed in a routine: snuggle, hot flash, nausea, run quietly to bathroom, puke bile, rest on tile floor, brush teeth, swig mouthwash, hurry to couch, snuggle with Sam.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

Was this a psychosomatic symptom manifesting itself because I was not being ready to be with a man just three months after Adam left me?

[I see all of you nodding your heads.  See me stomping foot:  “But people.  Sam’s cute!”]

You’d think I’d have asked him to leave.  I even engaged myself in a conversation about it.

Logical Tessa: You can ask him to go.  He will understand.  And if he doesn’t? Then he is not worth it. You are 41 years old. Get some rest.

Just Re-Devirginized Tessa:  But maybe I can get laid again in the morning.

I am an optimist:  I believed my headache would go away.  I believed Sam didn’t notice the evening’s activities.  I believed I would run out of bile eventually. 

I believed there would be more sex.

That day marked a new me. Permagrin and spring in step aside, I began exercising again, my appetite returned.  I didn’t sniffle or weep in support group, I burst in and actually sang out, “I had sex!”  [Yes, in hindsight, this exuberant outburst was probably inappropriate.]  

After my exclamation, I put my hand over my blushing face and disintegrated into a fit of giggles.  Those giggles let me sleep more soundly, which resulted in better focus, which resulted in stronger writing and stronger teaching.  That first night with Sam was the first step out of the abstruse, dark hole that was my grief.

Think about it.  Someone rejects you for a life alone, and three months later…

Despite the migraine, the diarrhea, the bile, the potential embarrassment, I was attractive to someone.  That’s saying something.

The adage goes that women grieve, men replace.  Justice to one’s self lies in the middle.  We need to grieve to heal.  But we also need to replace.  A friend of mine once told me I needed to have sex with someone new because I needed to wash off the taint.  She was right.

It was a new beginning.

Get Thee to a Nunnery? Maybe an Infirmary -Part Three

I knew that if I looked up, Sam and I would kiss.

Time passed in slow motion.  I weighed the pros and cons.  He was a friend.  Pro.  And Con.  I felt safe with him.  Pro.  He was going through his end-of-marriage crisis.  Con.  Maybe Pro.  I strategized while rubbing his leg.  His hand—slender but masculine massaged my neck.  He could be a massage therapist, I thought.  Pro.

I looked up.

Wham!  Flat on my back.

 What came next would make every hetero teenaged girl swoon.  It was just like in the movies.

 Waves crashed against the shore.

            Nape of neck kissed.

 Hair grabbed.

            Face held.

 Lips bitten.

            Bodies intertwined.

Twice.

I had been worried for naught about not knowing how to have sex with someone new.

Grief makes you fuck better.

Reread it.  It’s true.  I’ll write it again.

Grief makes you fuck better. 

In the midst of grief, there are no barriers; you are just too emotionally exhausted.  Raw.  Turned inside out.  All your nerve endings are tingly.

This makes for mind-numbing but physically over-stimulating sex.

Afterward, Sam and I laid on the couch.  We didn’t talk about what had transpired, that would come two days later.  He rubbed my back and we fell asleep wound tightly around one another on the couch.

Well, I’m lying.  He slept.

I thought.  

I wanted to ask if he’d be more comfortable in my bedroom, but I just didn’t feel ready.

Therapist: Tessa, so you felt ready to have sex.

Tessa:  Yes.

Therapist: But not in your bed.

Tessa: Yes.

Therapist: And while ready for the most intimate of acts, you don’t feel ready to have a man sleep in your bed?

Tessa: Exactly.  How is this a problem?

Therapist:  You don’t see an issue with intimacy?

Tessa: I just had sex. I refuse to see an issue with intimacy.

Sam turned on his side.  And spooned me.  He didn’t snore, but his breathing was clockwork.  I didn’t ask and snuggled into him.  I thought some more, reliving the physicality of moments before.

A migraine knocked.

It began slowly, with a pain behind my eye.  I hoped I was just dehydrated.  I carefully edged out from under Sam and got some water.  I climbed back under his arm. 

He kissed me. 

I pressed my finger into my eye to relieve the pain.

I counted to ten.  One.  Mind over matter.  Two.  No pain.  No pain.  Three.  If you think no pain, there will be no pain.

Four.  Hot flash!

If you’ve never had a hot flash before, let me introduce you to my incoming headache hot flash.  One part of you—your head, your lower back, your neck suddenly gets so hot, sweat bursts from your pores.  At the same time, you might shiver from the precipitate change in body temperature.  The hot spot spreads so quickly, you soak yourself as if you had run a race. 

Sam had pulled a blanket up around our bodies.  I pushed my feet out so I’d cool off.  Now, my feet were cold, my torso was hot, I was damp and caught a whiff of emerging body odor.  Mine.

On the bright side, I wasn’t feeling the eyeball pain.

I breathed deeply.  Relax, Tessa.  Inhale. 

Exhale. 

Inhale.

An overwhelming wave of nausea. 

Deep breath.  Deepbreath.  Deepbreathdeepbreath. 

Nope, that’s not going to work.

I hurriedly slid out from Sam’s embrace (not difficult since I was damp from sweat) and hurried—tip toe tip toe tip toe—to the bathroom.  I threw up a slice of pizza.

I laid my head on the cool tiles and listened to the toilet’s whir. 

Aside: Is it weird to be comforted by the sounds of a toilet?  I can’t decide whether it’s the reminiscent sounds of the womb or whether it’s mere relief that you got to the toilet in time to vomit.

Nervous that Sam would wonder what I was doing loitering in the bathroom, I convinced myself that it was just the pizza disagreeing with wine and sex.  I felt.  Okay.

I brushed my teeth, popped two Excedrin and headed back to Sam.

He lifted the blanket up for me and pulled me close.

Ah.  Just a nagging pain behind the eye.  The stomach felt settled.

I could live with that.   As I snuggled in with Sam, another hot flash hit the small of my back.

Followed by nausea.   Quick and rising. 

Followed by another kind of rumble.  Deeper.  Lower.

I eased myself off the couch with as much grace as I could muster and ran to the bathroom. Thud, thud, thud.

Bile.

Diarrhea.

This was not the way I wanted to re-lose my virginity. 

Stay tuned…

Get Thee to a Nunnery-Part Two: Never Gonna Happen

New clothes had nothing to do with it.  I was not destined for a nunnery.   I was not destined for the muumuu lifestyle.  I was not destined to take a stand against the beauty industry. 

Not four months after Adam walked out, Sam crashed into my grieving, Sardine-eating, House-watching life.  We ran into one another in a parking lot.  An old acquaintance, he was going through a divorce.  One messier and more mutual than mine.   

But he was further down the path than me, so he’d call to comfort, offer advice and make macabre jokes about our newly single lives.   Brief check ins turned into two-hour conversations—like the ones I had as a teenager.  Sitting underneath the desk in my father’s study, I would curl my toes into the antique pony rug and talk to the boy of the moment.  I’d  twist the phone cord around my fingers until my fingers tingled with numbness.  Eventually, one of my parents opened the door and said, “Enough, Tessa.  You can’t possibly have any more to say to that person.” 

 Oh, but I did!

 And it was no different with Sam.   Sam and I would talk about our families, our schooling, our exes, our politics, our futures.  We even had an earnest discussion about the super-hero powers we’d have—as if it were possible to order them off Amazon.  

He wanted to have super negotiating power.  A slight and bookish professional, Sam imagined he would broker peace not in the Middle East, not in Darfur, but between supervillians—Galactus the world eater and Doctor Doom.  King Kong vs. Predator.  Me?  I chose the power of teleportation.  Not only could I fight international jewel thieves, I could hike in the Andes, lunch on a beach in Thailand, sip cocktails in Buenos Aires, eat dinner in Paris, catch a late show in New York, and still sleep in my own bed.

Without that superpower, I’d talk to Sam and walk from the porch (lying down on the wicker loveseat) to the kitchen (unsuccessfully trying to wash dishes with a cell phone tucked under my ear) to the bedroom (lying down on the bed, head hanging off so I could see the night sky) to the living room (sitting cross-legged on the couch, petting my cat) and back to the porch.  Once, during a particularly long conversation, I even traversed to the bathroom for a pee.  

At some point, one of us pointed out that we could do more than have epic phone conversations—we could actually get together.  We met for drinks and dinner a few times, but this activity seemed date-like and we were Buddies.  Didn’t help that we were both feeling the financial pinch of being halved, so we decided take out and rented movies were better.   

One night, we sat on my couch eating pizza, sipping wine.  We had netflixed a mutual favorite,  About Schmidt.  As figurines danced across the top of Schmidt’s RV, Sam and I faced each other.  Leaned toward one another even.  Our eyes remained fixed on each other as we spoke. Something shifted.  We were no longer Tessa and Sam Buddies, we were Tessa and Sam on a Date. 

 My arms, my shoulders, the nape of my neck tingled.  I had permagrin even though I hadn’t indulged in any 420.  

 Oh, I admit it!  I was shameless.  I leaned forward as if to get a slice of pizza.  My arm brushed against his.  He touched my shoulder and left his hand there.  We sat like that for minutes, watching Jack Nicholson write Ndugu another letter.  I could barely see because I was bent toward Sam, frozen in an act of reaching for a slice.  I just didn’t want his hand to leave my shoulder.  

I leaned over further toward my wine glass.  My chest grazed his leg.  I touched his knee as if I needed support to reach the glass.  I left my hand on his knee.  I pretended to be intent on the film.  He rubbed my shoulder.  Our bodies now in a conversation of their own, my hand stroked his knee. 

My head still downward toward the coffee table, I knew that if I looked up, we would kiss.

Til tomorrow.

Get Thee To a Nunnery. . .Or Not

“Nostalgia (from nostos—return home, and algia—longing) is a longing for home that no longer exists or has never existed.  Nostalgia is a sentiment of loss and displacement, but it is also a romance with one’s own fantasy.” *

Even with all the talk about the deeper emotional connection when the urgent love fades, all of us at some point—six months or five years—yearn for the era when sex was hot.

So after 12 years, I was admittedly nostalgic for the days when Adam and I would have the best intentions to meet our friends, but we just couldn’t leave the bed.  Or after a night out, I’d be trying to put the key in the lock, and he’d be behind me, making it near impossible for me to turn the key.  Often we’d just end up fucking in the hallway of our tiny apartment.

So you’d think I’d have been excited for the prospect of ‘new sex’ when Adam left me.   But I was simply terrified. 

What if I had forgotten had to do it? 

Adam and I had developed a working shorthand for sex. Yes, there, one.  Now two.  Three!  Yes, good.  Four. . . . Great!   Orgasm.  Now you!  This.  That.  There.  Yes.  Yes.  Good.  Great!  Now. . . .  Orgasm.  Aaaah.  Cuddle.

But there was a deeper fear.  The fear of Never Again. 

My only opportunity to see if I had remembered how to have new sex would be to hire an “escort” from the back pages of LA Weekly.  Or I would peruse Craig’s List for men willing to devirginize a recent divorcee.

Most people told me I’d find someone, that I would meet a wonderful man and fall in love.  Certainly I would have sex again.  But I could list the post-divorce women who remained alone.  I could name women who have gone years without intimacy.  I asked ‘most people’ if they could guarantee someone would love me again.  ‘Most people’ shut up. 

I tried to imagine my life alone from that point forward.  I readied myself.  A life alone could be akin to a forced early retirement.  I’d take the golden parachute and find new hobbies.  Maybe I’d golf or take up watercolors.  Ceramics.  I’d become a potter.  I’d don a purple brimmed hat, a black muumuu, and, of course, Birkenstocks.

Just think of all the money I’d save.  Not that I’d kept trim for men, but this early retirement could mean no cardio, no squats—no more bootcamp and gym. No pedicures, no brow waxing, no age-defying face cream.  I would remove myself from the billion dollar plus beauty industry.  I’d be taking a stand!  I would eventually go gray and refuse to color it.  I could even stop shaving my legs.

With my new look (Aging Patchouli-an Chewbacca), my life could be a buffet of emotional gorging:  Kung Pao, fried chicken, pasta with clam sauce, lasagna, Red Hawk cheese by the case, cupcakes, glazed doughnuts, dark chocolate, and chocolate chip cookie dough.  Wine with every meal.  I’d cook my way through Julia Child’s cookbook like that blogger turned author did—but I’d also eat my way through it, alone. 

My stepmother, who so kindly didn’t roll her eyes at my decided fate, took me shopping—“new clothes for a new life.”   It’s as if she knew it would be a mere three months before . . .

Stay tuned. 

*Svetlana Boym, The Future of Nostalgia xiii (Basic Books 2001). 

Intermission: Is Love is Blind?

“Love, far from being blind, is the very emotion that allows us to see,” writes Cristina Nehring in her new book, A Vindication of Love (Harper 2009). In her opening chapter, Nehring argues that “[i]t is the only state of mind in which one is entirely and uncompromisingly open to another person.” She reclaims the countermovement: Love is wise. But are the two incompatible? Isn’t “love is blind,” short for “I see past your shortcomings to your true and lovable self?” I fear the author’s hook—an attack of a proverb—begins with mere tautology. Because to me, love is at once blind and wise.

With enchanting language, Nehring asks, “Why is it that we so often see people differently—and more darkly—after passion has passed? Could it be not because our vision improves after the fog of infatuation clears, but—for the opposite reason—because it deteriorates?” She answers her own questions several paragraphs later: “What happens when we cease to love is that we return to the world of surfaces and stereotypes.”

I don’t disagree, wholly. When love is strong and new, we are engaged with the world in hyperdrive. We read more, create more, exercise more, fuck more, grow more. And because it is new, and the attachment fresh, we forgive or even find charming the small idiosyncrasies (may I say turn a blind eye to them?) that would chafe if anyone else performed the same act.

Adam would be down to his last dollar and still buy the fancy Italian tuna in olive oil. No Bumble Bee for him, he was making tonnato sauce to accompany grilled swordfish. Forget Starkist. Not that he could even afford swordfish. I paid for it. As I paid for most our meals, when just plain salt, just plain mustard, just plain olive oil wouldn’t do. He was an excellent cook, he made each meal romantic and so, of course, I found his incessant overspending charming.

We do see the deeper person, the potential of that inner person, the reflection of our better self even. And this allows us to surf over the waves of dysfunction that lurk underneath.

On those nights, I would be his loving sous chef and we would prepare course after course at our own pace. Figs dressed with goat cheese and aged balsamic followed by sex on the kitchen floor. Spring pea soup with a dollop of crème fraiche, diver scallops seared and served over wilted escarole followed by dancing to Sinatra’s I’ve Got the World on a String. And then there was dessert, often cheese and nuts, sometimes a panna cotta. I saw his inner creative and nurturing soul, the person he wanted to be. And in that I saw the reflection of the kinder, softer person I could be.

This is wise, but it is a form of blindness nonetheless. And when the love fades—what does Nehring mean? Love, the urgent kind she speaks of, fades and one of two things happen: Urgent love fades and evolves into something more beautiful. Life is no longer in hyperdrive—we are refocused on the nitty-gritty and not creating as much, not exercising as much and not fucking as much. But a deeper honesty—a deeper intimacy—is achieved because the now annoying idiosyncrasies get addressed (put the toilet seat down, avoid the beans before bed), the dysfunctions faced, and ultimately more personal growth achieved. This second phase of love, to me, is the truest love. This is the deeper connection.

After five years living together and managing the financial turbulence of two freelance careers, his nose turned up at vegetables in a marina sauce for a cheap one-pot meal was no longer charming. It was annoying. This wasn’t love fading, this was me seeing past the romantic gesture to the dysfunction underneath. We talked. I understood what fine cooking meant to him after a childhood eating powdered mashed potatoes and sterile casseroles, how meditative cooking was for him, how he liked to nurture me. We adjusted our budget to spend more on food and he became more economical. We grew closer, more intimate. And who knew you could braise ever-economical sausage and sauerkraut to gourmet levels? Just add the juniper berries.

The other option is that love fades, hearts are broken, and grief ensues. To love again, a necessary refocusing takes place. A return to the surface with this person becomes necessary to break the attachment and move forward.

Sure, I resist returning to a shallow stereotype of Adam. My loyal friends returned there quickly so I can feel protected and loved by them and still heal without scars. My oldest friend calls him an immature, despicable dickhead. My mother calls him an idiotic disappointment. I’ve found myself referring to him as the depressive. But I haven’t resorted to food snob. Nehring calls this a reassertion of blindness, but isn’t this reassertion just making a long story short? This seems necessary; otherwise, each introduction of Adam would be a treatise. I would have to discuss how much I love him still even though the romantic love is gone, even though I am well on the road to healing. I would have to explain that despite his penchant for depression, withdrawal and general self-destructive tendencies, I am who I am because of Adam. For one, I am a much better cook and I overspend on food. He is who he is because of me. We are a dysfunctional family now estranged. To me, that is not blindness reasserting itself; for even after love, it is both blind and wise.

Eat Life

Therapist: So maybe you are feeling anxiety because deep down you know your relationship with Matthew is bound to end.

Me thinking: Can’t every relationship end?

Me:  Because of the age difference?

Therapist: Yes.

Me: Well, sure.  But if he were my age, I’d be worried it was too soon to be in a potentially long-term relationship.

And why can’t Matthew be a potential one?  Men do it all the time.

Don’t be ridiculous, Tessa.  This is going to end in heartbreak, likely yours.

Shut up.  Just enjoy it. He’s wonderful and I am entitled to wonderful right now.

Entitled, Tessa?  Really?  How self-absorbed are you?

Right, right. Don’t be self-absorbed, right. World peace and all that.  Go Obama Go.  

Me: So I’d be anxiety-ridden either way. 

Therapist: The anxiety would be different with a man your own age.

It would?  My anxiety is not so highly evolved, it’s more of a plankton emotion; it just drifts as it pleases, spreading angst and nervousness everywhere it wanders.  

Me: So I should end things with Matthew now because it might end one day? 

With that logic, I should have dumped Adam after two months.

Me: I enjoy spending time with him.  I don’t plan to date other men under 30, but seriously, I don’t get asked out by many men my age.  And those men?  Would not date.

Therapist: Why wouldn’t you date them?

Dead inside.

Me: Dead inside.  These men were resigned to their broken dreams, as if there wasn’t plenty of time to find others. They couldn’t even spin a positive intro when I met them. 

Sure, quit your failing music career and become an accountant.  But be passionate about it.  Or if your job is just a job, be passionate about your avocation, your hobby, your family—it’s all choices.  If one dream dies, find another.  If you’re in between, try to find passion in the journey.   Resigned, at any age, is not attractive.

Yeah, a beer gut and the refuse-to admit-your-balding look not so attractive either.  

Now Tessa, you don’t really think that. That would be shallow.

Okay.  Sure, I don’t think that at all.   

Therapist: With these men, maybe there is something under the surface.

I have to dig? How far?  Who am I, Indiana Jones?  I need to machete a path through a jungle, spelunk a cavern and dig through a crypt to find a man my age who is passionate about his life and where he’s headed? 

With my luck, I am more likely to find an arrogant man who thought he could buy his way into a trendy eco-adventure.  Totally out-of-shape and complaining about the lack of luxury services, he missteps, falls into a cenote and dies.  What I’ll take home is a bad case of poison oak and a crusty skeleton.

Dreaming forward is the lifeblood of my community, my tribe, my life.  It’s the bond that connects even the most disparate of people in my life.

My father is a retired judge.  He doesn’t introduce himself as a former judge, letting a silent question hang in the air: who are you now?  He embraces his new life and discusses his work as a mediator, he challenges himself with French now that he’s fluent in Italian. He dreams of playing better tennis, being more comfortable with working “freelance,” and traveling with his wife whom he still adores.  He’s never resigned that his best years are behind him.

Jane is a good friend who spent years as a struggling actor.  She is a dynamic public school teacher now.  She never introduces herself as an actor who didn’t make it big; she is passionate about the courses she’s developed, the teens she’s taught, the choices she’s made.  Truth is, she is already dreaming about the next era of her life post-retirement. 

My college roommate is a stay-at-home mom.  She embraces her “soccer-mom” life with gusto and doesn’t lament being tired or having taken a break from her career.  She dreams forward still, thinking about getting her PhD, thinking about jobs she might want once her kids are grown.

A former student of mine wanted to be a save-the-world environmental attorney.  Student loan debt and family obligations precluded that option.  He works for a big firm in an area of law he would have scoffed at five years ago.  But this isn’t how he introduces himself.  He has embraced the intellectual nature of his work; he is energized by the power his firm wields.  Plus, he mostly talks of fishing, his true passion.

None of these people are dead inside.  In fact, they eat life!  So in a previous post, I argued that I had no real checklist, but it seems I am wrong.  Any man I date more than twice will have to evidence a zest for the life he’s chosen.

 *

Maybe we all need to be better practiced in communicating our passions to new people in our lives.  Let’s save the digging for something else.  I’d like to dig for pirate treasure.  Gold doubloons. 

My friend Joy calls this kind of communication the thirty-second elevator pitch.  Maybe I’ve been in Hollywood too long, but I’m thinking movie pitch: “These days, I’m really Terms of Endearment meets Saw IV.”

Me?  Harold and Maude (“everyone has the right to make an ass out of themselves”) meets Fame (“I’m gonna live forever,  I’m gonna learn how to fly”).

Maude:  A lot of people enjoy being dead. But they are not dead, really. They’re just backing away from life. Reach out. Take a chance. Get hurt even. But play as well as you can. Go team, go! Give me an L. Give me an I. Give me a V. Give me an E. L-I-V-E.  LIVE! Otherwise, you got nothing to talk about in the locker room.

* 

Harold: You sure have a way with people.

Maude: Well, they’re my species!

Stay tuned. . .

PS. Dear readers, you might have noticed I am not posting as often.  I don’t want to devolve into diary-like posts or have the writing suffer.  I am also aware that my posts are longer than the customary 500-word entry.  I serialize where I can, but sometimes I don’t want to break the flow. Thanks for reading them.  To keep the quality as high as I can, I hope to post three times a week.  Love, Tessa

Grief and The Crazies -Part Two

Log of  Recent Events

Tuesday: Romantic Day on Beach.  I spend the night.

Wednesday: He calls me at 11 am to check in and tell me something.  He offers to help me with something I am doing that afternoon.  I decline.  I email him and invite him to a play next week. He accepts.

Thursday: Emails back and forth about the play.

Friday: He texts me about a new freelance gig he picked up.  I text him, “congrats.”  He texts me more about the job.  I text him that I was having a bad day, my computer has been crashing.

That’s where we are. I’m waiting. It’s been hours.

No text: Hope the day gets better.

No specific plans for the weekend, even though we’ve seen one another every third day or so for weeks. 

Enter the Crazies. 

I imagine them a battalion who enter your consciousness with stealth.  For they are trained in guerilla warfare, practiced in the worst forms of psychological head games. The Crazies are the size of superballs:  not rubber and bouncy, but pom poms deceptively soft, red in color. If you were to touch them, they’d hurt worse than nettled porcupines.  

Their multi-pronged attack has been honed over eons of practice increasing romantic anxiety in humans, from tweener girls to lonely men.  In a cave in Lascaux, a Paleolithic cave painting shows one woman waiting for a man to show up for dinner.  As it becomes clear he is not showing up, she slowly turns into a tornado that whirls to his home and grabs him by the hair.   New studies show that the ancient tattoos on men in the coastal regions of Papua New Guinea were not actually inked stories of their hunting exploits, but the stalked comings and goings of a lover suspected of lying. 

The first wave of Crazies vibrate and swirl, making a screeching noise only you can hear.  The result is increased nervousness and a pervading sense of doom.  A second wave of Crazies shrink to nano-sized bots and hop into your bloodstream, raising your blood pressure, your heartbeat, and possibly your insulin level.  Still anxious, you become tired and feel like eating a dozen glazed.  The third wave, the dangerous one, enters your brain as microscopic robo-mice.  They chant at you in childlike voices while they nibble on your ability to reason.

So I’m in mid-Crazy.  The reasonable person in me knows that he wanted to see a matinee today; the reasonable person in me knows that he likes me; the reasonable person in me knows I could just call him and ask him out for Sautrday night; the reasonable person recognizes that he is 23 and has organized his life as such; and the reasonable person knows that I am so weary and overbooked most of the time, I am okay not seeing him this weekend.

 But the mice eat away at those thoughts. 

I want to text him a quote from the newest Miss Manners: When a person with whom you are intimate answers your text with “I am having a hard day,” you should respond promptly with a polite sweet nothing.  This is, of course, only if you want to keep getting laid.

I have also been mapping out potential conversations for when he does eventually call or text with an invite for this weekend.  They are all variations of the fourth grade taunt: “you snooze, you lose.”  But of course, my answers are in turn haughty, witty, nurturing, mature, and nonchalant.  All delivered with a throaty whisper.  All delivered with the dishonest subtext, “I am not hurt, I am not vulnerable.”  

As I write this, I get an email from him: What are you up to this weekend?

Exhale and the Crazies are shot-put out of my body and soul.

This is not an acceptable way of being.  Yes, I have evolved past obsessive actions, but obsessive thoughts are exhausting and the shame of having them, more exhausting still.

Realizing that this is all due to the break up, I’d like to send Adam a gift basket of Crazies. And sometimes, a rabid raccoon to gnaw on his toes. 

To not feel alone in this, you turn to your support network and your Divorce Books.  As it turns out, the Crazies are common.  Anxiety over rejection, the need to feel lovable again, the need to connect with another soul, and fear of trusting another person are all causes of the Crazies.  And then there is the one that the Books don’t mention. The sheer amount of time spent grieving, healing, and rebuilding your life wears you down.  You want it done:  Buy light bulbs.  Check.  Go to drycleaners.  Check.  Buy cat food.  Check.  Find new love.  Check.

This will not be the last time I get the Crazies.  Adam walked out with no notice.  Cards, songs, and declarations of love within the month of him leaving, and he still tells me he never lied.  So I am on the journey to acceptance, a person can say one thing and mean it, and then leave and mean that too. 

So I answered my beau’s email late this afternoon and now wait for an answer.  I am breathing deeply.  I have already made plans for most of the weekend and so we will likely not see one another.  I am still waiting though, ever hopeful the Crazies won’t begin.