Anniversary 2

Charleston, South Carolina is a city where I was transformed. It was to Charleston that I fled the confines of my hometown to start a new life. In many ways, that experience was as traumatic as birth itself. But it was, ultimately, redeeming. I consider it to be the damn smartest, bravest thing I ever did.

The 14 months I spent there in 1995 were mostly in solitude, but I refused to allow that to keep me from enjoying it to the best of my ability. The great thing about Charleston is that even if you're flat-ass broke (which I was), you can still find something to do on the cheap. I'd stop at a roadside stand on my way to Folly Beach to grab a $2 bag of boiled peanuts and feed the seagulls. I'd go to the Market and buy a bag of warm pralines. I'd leash up Sparky (my cocker spaniel) and we'd spend hours upon hours mindlessly ambling along the streets of the historic area or the Battery, watching the tourists, the locals, the lovers. Charleston is, basically, the Paris of the South.

I'd go to Palmetto Islands County Park and walk on wooden pathways over tidal marshes and watch the crabs scramble in the marsh grass as I approached. I'd watch the great blue herons circle and land on sun-bleached tree branches. I'd drive along Sam Rittenberg toward I-26 and stick my head out the window to inhale that distinctive mix of fishy low-tide, the Westvaco paper mill downstream on the banks of the Cooper River, and pluff mud.

I remember on one particularly bad night, I went to the end of the pier at Waterfront Park, sat on a big square footing, and felt about as lonely and forgotten as a deathrow inmate, when suddenly I heard a "pppppffffffftttt." It was a dolphin breaking the surface of Charleston Harbor, swimming so close I could almost touch him. And I felt as if he were reassuring me, somehow, that this, too, shall pass.

That part of Charleston -- the part that simultaneously hurts and heals in my memories -- isn't something I share with everyone. Only special people. And it was here that, a year ago this weekend, I shared Charleston with Mr. G.

We had a marvelous dinner at Garibali: flash-fried flounder that, to this day, remains the most unforgettable meal I've ever had. We stayed at a beautiful bed and breakfast, in the nicest room in the house (thanks to my old friend who knows the owners). The room, decked out in Asian-inspired antiques, had a hot tub in the bathroom, which we used, but we made better use of the hot tub outside in the courtyard, where we talked. And talked. And talked. For three hours.

It was in that hot tub where Mr. G was somehow able to finally convince my stubborn, stubborn heart that I was "she," and I realized my life would be different. I could hardly wrap my mind around it.

That weekend, we kayaked the tidal creeks in a tandem, jokingly referred to as "divorce boats," as couples passed us by -- the men looking at us with scorn and the women with jealousy -- as Mr. G paddled happily, and as I lay back, feet up on the deck, inhaling, inhaling, inhaling.

Sigh...what a happy memory.

A Hand to Hold

I didn't sleep well last night. I haven't managed to get in bed before midnight for a month. I had sad dreams last night of Mr. G and me at some restaurant making the acquaintance of other couples at a large picnic table. He held my hand the whole time and I remember thinking, "It's so nice to have his hand to hold."

Then, he got up and sidled up next to another woman and started holding her hand like it's the most natural thing in the world. And, in true OB fashion, yours truly slinked away silently, unnoticed, forgotten.

A friend of mine said the opposite of love isn't hate; it's apathy. I have experienced the shock and sting of apathy before, the awareness that someone has no interest whatsoever in how you are and does a fine job of going forth in the world without missing you at all. I don't think that's the case here, which comforts me sometimes.

In the year that I was with Mr. G, our relationship had gradually become the most important thing in my life, and I orchestrated most everything around it. Even when I took a weeklong trip to California without him -- a decision I struggled with for a long time before I finally decided at the last minute to go -- it was wholly based on the state of our relationship at that point, and I felt I shouldn't deny myself a good opportunity just because he wasn't going.

If I were a good Christian woman, Christ would be the most important thing. And if there was ever a good time for me to make Him #1, it's now.

But who am I fooling. My sadness has become the most important thing. That unruly child (see "Playlist" entry) runs the show. And she gets all my time and attention these days. I'm tired of her, but it feels like she's the only link to the emotional security I once felt that I have remaining.

On his myspace profile, Mr. G tells the world he's been married before and that he's been in several heart-breaking long-term relationships, but has changed and grown since then. Was I one of those relationships? And how can one change and grow in a month? I can say unequivocably that, while I know change and growth are taking place, I'm no different than I was a month ago. Faced with the same choices I had then, or a year ago, I'd probably do the same thing and make the same mistakes (provided they were mistakes, which I'm not sure they were. I understand that life involves risk and sometimes shit just happens).

So what lessons has he learned? Never to date someone whose feelings don't match his pace? Never to date someone who struggles sometimes to communicate? I really want to know what it is he's learned. Perhaps he's been too kind to tell me what a fuckup he thinks I am.

God, I wish someone would comment on this blog. Is anyone reading this?

I can't let Brat (the unruly child) run the show anymore. She isn't helping me. She's a glutton for punishment and she's a big ball of fear, anxiety and self-blame. And she has an all-or-nothing way of thinking, insisting that there are only one or two people on this planet who could tolerate her nail-biting, smoking and snoring (not that those who tolerated them liked them, but they had enough depth and compassion not to make them deal-breakers).

I want Mr. G to be happy. No question. I want him to have a hand to hold.

But I want to be the first one to find mine.

STOP! In the Name of Love!

I have been so insanely, inexcusably lazy for the last, say, two months that it's out-and-out depressing. With a 20-year reunion coming up in only five weeks, I need to get my arse in gear. Inspired by one of those "I need to do something good for myself" moments that follow a period of emotional duress, I decided to take the plunge and purchase something I've wanted for years: a treadmill.

So off I traipse over to Dick's on my lunch hour to look at what's out there, and there are several on clearance for as low as $400. I wrote down the models and checked them out online only to discover they aren't rated that high. Sigh....

Undeterred, I went to Dick's again today, determined to purchase a new treadmill. I went in for this....


...and walked out with this...




Sigh...I just couldn't do it. Which really pisses me off because I've wanted one of these for years.

But hey, the trampoline was only $29. But I have visions of Kathy Bates as Evelyn Couch in "Fried Green Tomatoes" bouncing about on her trampoline singing, "Stop! In the name of love!"

Dude, I don't want to go to my high school reunion looking like this...



Hey, at least my hair is more fabulous than hers! :-)

OB

Anniversary

It's a Sunday ritual that started four years ago, back when it seemed everyone I knew was getting married, and my recent ex had found the love of his life within days of our breakup. Out of curiosity or, arguably, self-punishment, I would check out the "celebrations" section of the Sunday paper that announced weddings, engagements, anniversaries and births.

My now ex-ex-ex has yet to appear on those pages and I doubt he ever will. He's still with the same woman, and they have bought a house together. But when I saw her a few weeks back at a nearby lunch spot, I did the obligatory ring check and see nothing shiny. I think his "starter marriage" burned him too badly to ever go back again.

Seeing this announcement in this morning's paper made me smile. Look at how happy they are in both pictures. I wonder what they have gone through together. Have they weathered infidelity? Financial ruin? Substance abuse? Do their kids love them? How many times have then fallen out of love with each other? How often was one of them more in love with the other and vice-versa? Or were they among the lucky ones (like my grandparents) who were on the same page the entire 50+ years they were together?

Life throws bad crap at you from all directions, and it seems to be worse today than ever before. So I wonder....in 25 years, will there even BE couples like this, celebrating 50 years of their life together, complete with a family they created, clean of ex-spouses, step-parents, half-siblings and visitation battles?

Chop-Chop! Time's A-Wastin'

Turning 25 was hard on me. Two years prior and fresh out of college, I had set off on what was supposed to be the experience of a lifetime -- a yearlong adventure across Asia, starting in Taipei living with my brother and his girlfriend (soon to be ex-wife...let's just gloss over the marriage part since it didn't last very long), teaching in Bushi-bans (that taught "American" English) for a few months in order to earn enough cash for passage on the folklore-laden, Agatha Cristie-immortalised Siberian Express, which would take my brother, his girlfriend Echo, and me across China, up through Russia and through Eastern Europe until we wound up in London, the city I'd dreamt of since childhood and which, in 1991, was still humming with teddy-boys, punks, and drugged up "nuns" sauntering along Kings Road listening to the Sex Pistols, Brian Eno, Roxy Music, Duran Duran and Heaven 17 on boom boxes...heaven, indeed. Then we'd fly home to the States together, full of wonderful stories of jade-colored mountains, $1 noodle dishes from roadside stands, myriad languages we couldn't speak or understand, and eccentric, fascinating, tragic and joyful people we'd met along the way.

But I came back three weeks later because I'd somehow convinced myself that my spirit wasn't large enough to take the opportunity I had. I thought then that I was too old. That it was something you did while you were still in college. I seemed to think that I needed to grow up, get a job with the degree I had, get an apartment and start paying bills. What was the fucking hurry?, I ask myself now. I was fucking TWENTY-THREE!

So I greeted 25 with a profound sense of failure. By that time, I had done pretty much what I had set out to do: I got a steady job at a hotel doing reservations (not using my degree at all); I got an apartment with a lease. I was paying for my own tires, cooking my own meals, and being smug in my independence. Not so surprisingly, a co-worker discovered my very first gray hair on my 25th birthday. No joke.

So here I am, 13 years later. In that time, I have procured a mortgage, a master's degree, a reliable and distinctly UN-sexy car, and an effin' awesome credit score. I have also been away from my hometown for 11 years. In 2000 (perhaps the best year of my life), I accomplished dreams I'd had for years: mainly, finally going to London (I've been three times now), traveling to other places I thought I'd never see (though not as much as I'd hoped by this point), and meeting Duran Duran in person. I have the picture to prove it.



I was 32 when that picture was taken. Being able to give that gift to my teenage self -- a self who believed she would never see Westminster Abbey in person or shake Simon LeBon's hand -- was bolstered by confidence so much that the next year I dropped 15 pounds and felt like I could take on anything I wanted to do: full-time freelancing, marriage, worldwide travel, you name it. Check out this happy, hot mama...



Well, that isn't exactly what's happened in the six years since. It's been an interesting ride, and I suppose I've done a lot. I have a gazillion friends and acquaintances -- so many I can't even go across the country without bumping into someone I know. I feel like I've sucked the marrow out of the independence I have created for myself. Better than marrying right out of college, having babies, and suddenly realizing you don't know who you are because you never gave yourself the chance to explore it, I told myself.

But here I am, just like the frazzled wife and mother, in the reality I have created for myself. And despite always feeling older than I really was, with the barometer of "what have you accomplished by this time in your life" having nipped at my heels for years and people telling me, "For God's sake...you have plenty of time"...well, they aren't telling me that now. I am teetering at the precipice of (gasp) middle age. And I have come to realize that it doesn't matter whether you got married and had kids early on. The weight of the choices you made bear down on you like an anvil. It's not like I took advantage of my unfettered life the way the world expects of a single woman. I'm not burning up the corporate ladder or enjoying the job of my dreams that pays me so much money that I could retire tomorrow if I wanted to...if ever. I have a modest life, a modest income, virtually no relationships with my own siblings, much less my extended family, leaving me with a feeling of dwindling security.

Now that I find my dreams of youth fading before me, I want something to work on. Something to work toward that will have lasting value. Be it a marriage or a child or both. I don't care how hard it is. I don't care how tired it makes me. Anything's better than having nothing to work toward that's bigger than just little old me and my little existential crises.

As recently as five years ago, I had maintained the position that kids just weren't for me. I perceived them the same way my father did: they steal your youth, your energy, your dreams, and your money (which is exactly what my siblings have done). They don't ever give back what you gave them. As for marriage....well, that's different. I always wanted to be married. Always. But I was almost ashamed of it and never admitted it. I didn't have girlhood dreams of a big white dress to match the big white cake. I thought that was all stupid, and I pitied my friends whose dreams were so pedestrian.

When I was younger, I was actually excited at the prospect of being on my own for the rest of my life, because I thought I'd be the woman everyone envied. I would embody the regrets those wives and mothers my age struggle with today. I'd be the woman with the cool job everyone would go "Wow" over. The woman whose life would resemble Justine's on Lonely Planet. The woman who, while fully immersed in the joy and simplicity of doing what she likes when she likes, would stumble upon a man so captivated by her radiance, happiness, lust for life and independence that he'd want to roam with her forever.

Who knows if this will ever happen? I try to keep hope alive that it will, or that if it doesn't, I will find a true passion in my life that gives it meaning beyond the confines of my own existence. But, dang it...with every failure I survive, the hope that some lesson will arise that will help me transcend this feeling of just frittering time away sometimes seems the furthest thing from me, leaving me to feel like a mouse on a wheel. Kinda like what Pink Floyd says, "Runnin' over the same old ground, but have we found the same old fear? Wish you were here."

After all, time REALLY is a-wastin'.