Thirty is the New Twenty

Do you remember being 20?  I do.  It was two years after I turned 18, and two years before I graduated from college.  The hardest thing I dealt with was final exams and hangovers.   I did a lot of soul searching at keg parties and rock concerts.  I didn't know all that much, but I thought I did.  I knew everything I was going to do with my life - graduate school, become a professor of Anthropology, get married and have children.  I was going to do that by 25.  Riiiiight.

I kinda thought 20 was hard.  I took myself pretty seriously.  I was making life decision, and you know, making things happen.  What things, I don't know.  But they were things.  And they were important.  My life had a direction and a purpose.  I was going some place.  I'm not sure where I thought it was going to be, but it was some place.

In my life before I was 20 and knew it all, I was a kid, just like everyone else.  I met two good friends when I was 11.  These two friends are my Oldest Friend, and LIPAH.  All of us are 30 years old, so for the record, that means we've been friends 19 years.  Yikes.  We met in the 6th grade when the biggest issue we had was which boy we had a crush on, or that our folks wouldn't drop us off at the mall.  We didn't have body image issues, or at least, not big ones.  We didn't make poor alcohol-related choices that plagued us for months or years on end.  Our hearts weren't broken yet, though we thought they were.

We spent a considerable amount of time, between the ages of 11 and 14, playing nintendo, swimming at my Oldest Friend's pool, and riding LIPAH's gator.  We thought we were cool, so sometimes we chained smoked in the park near Brew HA HA.  We had sleepovers and watched a lot of stupid movies, played MASH, and talked about boys.  You know, normal stuff tweenagers do.  Actually, to the tell you the truth, I guess we do most of these things even now. :)

In the beginning of 9th grade, LIPAH went her separate way from us, and at the end of 10th, an important year for this whole story of my life, by the way, I went my own way.  LIPAH lost touch because email and chat programs weren't standard; Facebook and Skype weren't even invented yet.  My Oldest Friend and I lived only about 4 miles from each other though, and we remained extremely close.

It turns out - both of them had plans when they were 20 too.  LIPAH went off to boarding school, college, and then had a city life at a big PR firm in Manhattan.  She lived the life.  Long hours, big days, stiff drinks.  With her own place in Jersey City, a boyfriend she loved, and a life of her own, she was manhandling NYC.  With ease.

My Oldest Friend, who incidentally happens to be chronologically the oldest among us three, went to Italy when she was 17.  She studied there for two years, but she accelerated her degree and graduated college in three years.  For a number of reasons, she moved home the summer after college, and worked at the barn she worked at for most of her childhood.  She banked every cent, studied her brains out, and was accepted to law school.  Ladies and Gentleman, my BFF, is a bigass lawyer.  I'm proud as shit of her.  And, as a bonus, she met TBC there, and they are the love of each other's lives.

I did it the safe way.  I graduated from my small liberal arts college, where I kicked ass and took names, fairly effortlessly.  With no job prospects or determination, no graduate school acceptance, or even finish applications, I took a job at the company where my father was already an executive.  TxB stayed in Reading to work on his (even as of now, unfinished) degree while I worked in the Management Development Program at the bank.  Until a couple of years ago, I never really liked my job very much.  It was an overpaid babysitter, who didn't make nearly enough to be so miserable.  But I had a house payment and bills, and I was the primary breadwinner.  Sometimes the only one.

If you fast forward to about 2 years ago, LIPAH moved home, and we found ourselves, the three of us, reunited.  At a chinese place, in the center of our homes (Chadd's Ford, Philadelphia, and Newark), we talked and laughed like no time had passed.  It turned out, though we didn't know it at the time, that we were all about to have major life changing events happen to us.  At the same time.

The times were changing, even then.  The seeds were being sown.  My Oldest Friend transitioned to a new job that she's not so crazy about from one that she absolutely loved.  It was her dream job.  But the assignment was over.  LIPAH, on the other hand, settled into her family's business, running the social meeting and networking program, met someone she ultimately fell in love with, and then lost a little part of focus during the transition.  And I, well, I was flailing like a fish out of water with a job I hated, a roommate I hated (TxB) but didn't know it, and a life that, well, I hated.  Now, I just hate that I hated it.  All three of us were approaching 30.  And it turns out, we didn't know a damn thing then, just like we didn't know a damn thing when we were 20.  The only difference that time is we knew we didn't know.

Why am I telling you all of this?  What the fuck is the point?  And what does age have to do with it?  Well, I guess I don't know.  I find it interesting and humorous that the three of us best buds reunited within months of major life changes.  I find it odd and timely that we all turned 30 and the major relationships in our lives changed.  LIPAH broke up with her boyfriend, and I met someone new.  My Oldest Friend has found strength and peace in her relationship with her husband.

We all have new plans.  LIPAH wants to go back to school; I'm about to finish.  I feel pretty confident that my Oldest Friend will have a new job any day now, but more details about then when they happen.  We all have new lives.  We all have new hearts.  Better ones.  But we still don't know what the hell we are doing.

It seems like 30 is the new 20.  It seems like we have these dreams and goals that are just standing there almost in reach.  Instead of keg parties and strip poker, it's more like implementation plans and briefs that are due overnight, but there's something out there, something waiting.  We just don't know what it is.

Maybe that's what 30 is.  Maybe this is the way it's supposed to be.  I think I just got awfully lucky to go through it with the 2 people in my life who have known me the longest.

There's not point to this entry except that things happened for me this week in my personal life.  Major things, that I don't want to share yet, or maybe at all.  But I just seemed to find and let go of tremendous rage.  And there are things in progress for both LIPAH and my Oldest Friend that will, I think, work out for them too.

Mostly, I think I just look forward to the toast we get to do when all three of us find whatever it is we are looking for.  Because I think it's all coming to a head.  Now.

So.  Well.  Good luck to us.  And in the meantime, cheers!

Misplaced Guilt

I've never run across a person who doesn't have a story about grief or pain caused by a loved one. I think it's a rite of passage for people; perhaps being wronged is just a piece of the human condition.

I'm completely fascinated with the all the ways we process situations, manage the pain, and defend the people who hurt us. People feel anger or rage, sadness, indifference, and usually guilt. Ah yes, guilt. Guilt is the worst part of it. It's the least appropriate response, and yet, the most normal. I think that's because society generally demands that we take responsibility for not just our own actions, but other people's too. Have you ever heard the saying "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." I hate that. I want to rewrite it to say: "If you fool me twice; you're just a fucking jerk." It doesn't have quite the same ring to it, eh?

But when an unlocked car is hijacked, we say things like "well what did you expect?"
If a child is kidnapped, we want to know where her parents were.
People think young women who are assaulted should have prevented it by having a buddy.
Even the PA liquor control board wants to pawn off your friend's DUI on you; if you had stopped him, he wouldn't have driven.

In all of those situations, and any other predator-victim circumstance, it's important to be smart. It's not a bad idea to keep your doors locked or your eyes on your child. Walking a friend home or taking his keys are responsible things to do. But why does the predator get off the hook? Why don't we ever talk about the guy who broke into my car, or the person who assaulted someone? Why do they get to walk away from the responsibility? And why do we, as victims, allow the blame to be placed on us?  Why do we place it on ourselves?

The guilt that's felt when you become a victim, a little bit over time, has a whole different level of complexity to it. When someone you love, someone you look up to and trust, strategically changes the way you behave, the way that you think, and how you see yourself, it becomes difficult to understand or walk away.  It becomes normal.  It's the life you know.  Seems personal, huh? Well it is.

I have a lot of guilt. I didn't protect my heart. I didn't protect my Oldest Friend. I didn't protect my family. I didn't, unfortunately, protect myself. And don't get me wrong - I have anger, and sadness; I hope one day, to progress from this intense hatred to simple indifference. But mostly, I just feel responsible.

If only I saw it. If only I listened. If only I paid attention to the little voice inside me that said "That's danger, Mushroom. That's danger." If only I had done it a little bit differently. And then what? What would it do? Would it absolve me from my sins? Would it make TxB feel more responsible? Does it change anything?

It shouldn't. It wouldn't. It might have. I could have done a lot of things to make the outcome different. If I answered no at Alsace Drive, things would be different. If I didn't shrug off working 2 jobs and going to school FT when I was under 21, things would be different. If I freaked out instead of defending, things, I assure you things would different.  In ways, my friends, I won't even explain.

I think I would have gone to graduate school out of undergrad.  By now, I'd likely be a mom, and maybe a wife, someplace else. I definitely wouldn't have 6 cats. I hope I'd have a better body image and an easier time asking for help. I'm certain I wouldn't be wishing the last 11.5 years hadn't happened.  Maybe wishing away time will change.

But in the same way that will change, my perception of everything has too. I used think there were good parts, but I've recently come to terms with the reality that there just were not good parts. There never were. There were only slightly good times, but even they were manipulated and fabricated memories, altered and changed to suit someone else's needs. I was stripped of my emotional stability, my family's support, and my personal identity. I broke the rules for "love"; he broke the rules for himself.

Now, nearly a year later, I realize these things, and I'm coming to terms that it's time for me to stop being responsible for what has happened to me. I hope that will help the wounds heal, and the scars dissolve. I hope I'll find peace from the guilt.

It's hard to do. I'm smart and capable. To admit I've been made, for all these years, brings nothing but questions without answers to my head. I've been managed, transformed, and stifled. I molded into whatever he needed or wanted me to be. I learned to accept his word and trust him. I believed everything he said.  And why?  I have no answers.

On the other hand, I was 17. SEVENTEEN.  What 17 year old would do it differently? He was a grown up, and it worked out this way because he had control over the situation. It's time for me to step back and see that I shouldn't be guilty. I shouldn't be responsible. I shouldn't be to blame. I am, in this case, the wronged one.  It doesn't mean I am free from all of my sins. Sins, oh they exist, but there is no need to defend bad behavior.  I've more than owned my parts; I don't have to own his, too.

There's always a bright side, or at least, I like to try and find it. Dinner on Saturday night was an amazing example of the ways my life has been enriched through my past.  Old Man and Teach came to my life as TxB's friends, but I daresay, they are my own now. TresPageJr, their sweet and funny little girl, has been a part of almost every major event in my adult life, and she's one of the most special kids I've ever met. She has truly blessed my life.  I'd like to think, and hope, that in some mall way, I have also blessed hers.

So while I'm working out what this all means in my head, I will enjoy people like TresPageJr, her Old Man and Teach. I'll replace guilt with, if I'm lucky, indifference. Eventually that indifference, I hope, will turn into joy, peace and love. I can't worry about what I could have done differently or how it's my fault.  I have no idea what I should do now. Instead, I'll try to just be.

90 days to change your life

If you're looking for a self help blog, dear friends, this isn't it.  Self help seems strong, wise, brave, and stoic, but that's not what this is about.  Instead, it's about all the ways I've been needing, asking for, and accepting help; it's been in all manner of ways, for the last several months.  And the help has been excessive -  emotional, physical, medical.  It's not especially dignified or refined, but neither is hitting rock bottom.

Which, by the way, I did - and it was shortly after my 30th birthday came and then went.

I was trucking along, minding my business, and then a remarkable thing happened to me.  My family, my sweet, crazy family came together to celebrate my 30 years in the most fabulous way possible.  Surrounded by almost everyone I love dearly (sadly my Oldest Friend was unable to make it), I managed to sit back and allow the night to be about me.  And, you know I didn't hate it.  Perhaps that was a first time for me.  Even my graduation party from college was more about TxB than it was about me.

So then I met someone that night, Pepper, an outrageously handsome server who bought me a shot to celebrate my birthday.  Little did I know, four days later, he'd sweep me off my feet at a little Italian bistro on Main Street; I didn't quite realize, even then, that 90 days later, I'd find myself dazzled and delighted by him.  Folks, I adore that man.  I do.

A few days later, I realized something huge in my life had to happen; I needed to claim my own space.  It took a lot longer than it should have, but after a short exchange with my old "room mate", I finally had a future date to look forward to - July 1 - and my own place.  And to answer his audacious and inappropriate response when I told him I needed him to move out - yes, that week really *was* that good without him.

Three or so weeks went by, and all was right in my world, but then everything sort of crumbled around me.  I realized, in a heaving mess on the kitchen floor, that I'm just not that strong.  I can't go to school full time, work full time, be an exceeds performer, go places with all my friends whenever they ask.  I can't work out for 4 hours a week, meet with a trainer, get 8 solid hours of sleep, and wake up ready to face the day.  And I can't transition from 11.5 years with TxB acting like none of it ever mattered.  Of course it mattered.  It was 11.5 years, the 11.5 years that are arguably the most dramatic and defining ones of my entire life.  Actually, I think it's rather shocking it took me until June to find myself in a heap on the kitchen floor one random Thursday afternoon, isn't it?

Luckily, I found myself facing my therapist a little over 12 hours later, staring her in the face, squinting my exhausted eyes at her and admitting, in one miserable mess of words, "I need your help."  As a therapist, it seems help is her speciality.  A wise one, she is.

The details are rather boring.  We've managed doses and prescriptions.  I'm doing as much as I can to let things work - I do things like put the laptop away early at night, listen to white noise when I sleep, and I've cut out most alcohol.  I'm trying to take care of my body, work out, eat well, though on the list of things I have energy to do, those are not among the top.  It's a work in progress.

Emotionally, it's a little harder.  I excel at communicating.  I can talk my way out of a paper bag.  I can reason with the professors, children, and professionals  I even say things that seem deep and meaningful; if it's about your life, then it probably is. I know, however, that almost none of you know very much about me.  Hey it's not because you didn't ask; it's because I never tell you.  

Maybe some of you are confused or shocked to read that.  Maybe it seems like I tell everyone everything.  Sometimes people tell me I'm transparent in a good way.  I bet those of you who are close to me though, I mean really close to me, are nodding your heads. I finally admitted it to you.  I finally see.  I don't really talk about things that matter to me.  I spent a pretty good chunk of my life with reinforcement that what I think or say, feel or believe probably doesn't matter anyway.  I don't want anyone to feel sorry for me.  That was just my reality, and mostly, I didn't know any better.  It was just the way things were.  This blog, as you have all smartly assumed, is just one way for me to take back that power.  And I hope that maybe one or two of you are glad that I'm willing to actually share a little piece of what goes on in this brain of mine.

I'm finding myself terribly scared to admit I need help, to ask for what I need, or to talk about things that matter to me.  But I'm getting better.  I'm pretty sure my Unlikely Friend, my Oldest Friend, my Work Wife, and Pepper would agree.  Or maybe Pepper wouldn't, because he only knows the broken down me.  I'm lucky for him, because little by little, he's helping me see that people who care about me want me to be safe.  He's been nothing but affirmative and supportive.  I'm finding myself much less scared to open up to him.  I can tell him things I'd never, in a million years, have ever said out loud after 11.5 years, much less 90 days.

And hey Pepper, if you're reading this, thank you, from the bottom of my heart.  Thank you.

The meds, well you know, they make me less moody, less variable, and little more even.  The side effects were pretty terrible for a few weeks, but they've evened out, and almost everything is resolved.  Some stuff isn't ideal, but livable, at least, it is for the short term.  The even moods feel a little bit disingenuous though, if I'm being honest.   I've been a lot of things in my life, but even probably isn't one of them.  I live my life in record high highs, with momentary lapses of lows.  At least I usually did.  Unfortunately the lapses of lows were longer and deeper than ever before.  The meds take care of that, for sure, but I don't feel the same level or range of emotion I felt before.  That's the point, and it's a welcomed change from that crumpled mess on the floor, but it's changed me.  I'm a little more sullen, and little more in my head, and a lot less energetic.  I hit a wall around 6pm.  I can fake it for a few hours, but ask my sisters or sisters in law what the bachelorette party was like for me last weekend; I can only fake it for so long.

I'd like to think that a lot of people who know me can see the real me is still in here someplace.  "Real."  Heh.  As if anyone knows who that would be.  But truly, I'm still here.  I'm just even.  If I seem disinterested or unenthusiastic about whatever we're doing, it's probably not the case.  Out of what is love and concern, I've had numerous people ask me "what's wrong; you're not yourself."  Well, friends, this is what's wrong.  It's been a a crazy emotional 3 months.  It's been a crazy emotion 30 years.  It's taken a toll.  I'm climbing out of the crumpled mess.  You have to, and I beg you to please, just give me more time.

But I digress.  The point?  90 days from May 5th, that 30th birthday party that surrounded me with love, laughter, family, old friends, Unlikely Friends, and one very special new friend, I've found myself a totally new person.  I have my own space to do what I want.  I manage the mess that I make, or sometimes, I don't manage it at all.  But it's mine.  I cook when I want, I clean when I want, I sleep when I want.  I don't have to think about anyone else when I go to the store, buy new decor for the house, or fall asleep with the light on.  I'm becoming fairly selfish; I don't really consider the needs or feelings of anyone else - not unless I want to.  And, while I struggle pretty seriously with it still, I ask for help when I need it.  Big help, little help - I ask.  Well, this entry, and even this blog, I hope, provides the proof that I'm working on it.  I am.

For now, I leave you with one last thought.  You don't have to take this path.  In fact, I urge you not to.  But if you see yourself in drowning, cowering, and you don't know how you'll ever get out of it - I promise there's a way.  If 90 days turned me from the co-dependent, emotionally void kid into the work in progress, the woman who I think I'm becoming, I promise you friends, 90 days can certainly begin the change.