Ooh...pants on fire...

One of my favorite movie scenes is from "City Slickers." It's a scene where the Bruno Kirby character asks Billy Crystal what he would do in a hypothetical situation where some aliens land who look like gorgeous women. In the hypothetical situation in question, one of these aliens would want to have sex with the Billy Crystal character-with the caveat that his wife would NEVER find out about it.

"I mean, guaranteed. She would never know." Bruno Kirby's character says. "Would you do it?"

"No." Billy Crystal responds.

"Why not?" Bruno asks.

"Because, I'd know."

I was asked recently if "I was ready" to be friends with my most recent ex. Apparently, this potential friendship is contingent upon something being askew and needing resolution within me. "When I'm ready" has come up several times...and I generally like and miss this person. She's smart, and nice, and funny...and I think I could do that. I'm truly at peace with the overall outcome of things, and believe that everybody is right where they are supposed to be.

There is one big issue I have though...and I think it is less my issue than it is hers.

She lied to me. Quite a bit, actually-now that I think about it.

This isn't some unforgivable offense, and it certainly isn't the sum of who she is. But, I'll tell you why it is a pretty big problem in the scheme of whether or not "I am ready" for a friendship.

The very fact that she asks me that tells me that she isn't ready.

My processing of things isn't the problem.

There was never any guarantee that the "outcome" would be some "happily ever after." When you tell someone, in an effort to reassure them so they will let you in, that you "won't hurt them," it isn't a guarantee of an outcome...but, it is a sort of statement that you won't take actions that are reckless, careless, completely selfish, or would have a possibility of putting them at risk. That's all I thought it meant, and I chose to believe that part.

So, the OUTCOME would have been sad and disappointing. It didn't work out. But, the LYING turned it into hurt...by conscious actions and choices taken that, in effect, threw me under the bus so someone else could do and get what they felt they needed, while still holding me in reserve while they made up their minds.

Because, had I known what was going on, I would have chosen (for myself and my own well-being) to totally leave that situation. She knew that, and it wasn't convenient for her to have to deal with my reactions, or fussing, or decisions yet...so "what she doesn't know won't hurt her."

That's about the long and the short of it. I was treated like a prop in someone else's journey...as if the thing to figure out was all about HER happiness. That is what was important, really...and given that I'm not her, well, what happens to me is secondary.

Lying to me had only ONE purpose, and it wasn't about "saving my feelings." It was to buy time to work some personal stuff out for herself.

As if it is okay to put an entire person "on-hold," so you can come back at your leisure is anything but totally selfish. Kind of like a handbag that you like at the store, but can't decide on...so you hide it on an out of the way rack in case you want to come back for it.

I'm not a handbag (and DEFINITELY not a purse).

When my intuition was screaming at me, it was suggested that I was imagining and over-thinking things...which I am prone to do...so, I was seriously questioning myself. I've only recently learned to really follow my instincts and trust myself...so this pisses me off.

It actually served to reinforce my belief in my "gut feelings"...and, overall things are truly okay. But, THAT isn't my point...nor is it a reason to let this slide as all the "magic workings" of the universe.

Man, you don't treat people that way! It wasn't okay to treat ME that way! It was seriously disrespectful...and I honestly don't think she sees that in more than a slight, peripheral way...because she's super happy...and I'm okay...no harm done!

When she treated me like some kind of accessory, she wasn't even being a GOOD FRIEND...and the fact that she's done it to others, repeatedly, in her past....did it to me...and manages to ask me if "I am ready" to be friends....tells me that she has no clue, really...has learned nothing new...and is very much NOT a safe person to include in my life.

I don't need or want to hear "I'm sorry"...or need for things to have worked out any differently. If I thought it had dawned on her how seriously screwed up it is to think that people might exist for our benefit...everything would be fine. OMG-had this come even six months earlier in my life, it would have literally been DANGEROUS for me.

As it was, it was terrifying to entertain a claim of "I won't hurt you." Thank goodness I have tools now that I didn't have this time last year. Some people are so very fragile, wounded, lost...if you get intimate with them, you have a responsibility to not be a selfish a**hole.

It's not that I'm holding a grudge. It's not just sour grapes. It's not that I think she's a scumbag. I AM MAD, because I was treated like ornamental crap...but forgiveness would be a breeze...if I thought she had any new wisdom that might make her safe friend material.

Am I ready for friendship?

My goodness, silly girl. I miss a lot about you...but, that is the wrong question.

Soundless symphonies, and other things that break your heart...

When I first started as a young social worker, I worked with severely emotionally disturbed youth for a while. These were kids who had lived through horrors that I can't really even imagine.

It didn't occur to me until very recently that one of the things about these children was the seemingly different way in which they grieved. I witnessed it many times...a loosening and spilling of sorrow in the form of tears. At the time, I didn't identify what was so unusual about it. I look back now, and it hits me...like a ton of bricks...

These kids cried quietly. Tears would stream down their faces in total silence. Sometimes if you didn't look carefully, you wouldn't even know that they were crying.

The first thing that might occur to someone is that they had learned to be quiet, for fear of additional abuse. I'm sure in many cases this was true. You don't want to be the squeaky wheel in places where such attention could unhinge your world in the form of cruel words, a belt, or a fist. Or worse.

But, there is also something else.

I grew up in a home where love was given and expressed freely. Not only was it safe to cry, but a good sniffle and boo-hooing would invariably result in someone who loves you coming to comfort you...to put their arms around you, wipe your tears away, and tell you that everything was going to be alright.

From scraped knees, to schoolyard rejections, all I wanted was to get home to my mom or dad and break apart, because they would HEAR ME make everything safe, and warm, and okay again. How incredibly blessed I was. I entered into adulthood with the expectation that this is how the world worked.

I remember the first time I hit that edge of human emotion with someone who really didn't give a sh*t. It was a girlfriend...a woman who had come from a hard place...and she looked at my tears with total indifference. In fact, she told me to shut up, and proceeded to totally ignore me. Looking back, it seems silly...but I was totally shocked.

Well, life has shocked me quite a bit since then, and I have toughened up considerably. It's good. I needed to. I had been sheltered, and, of course, I didn't realize it.

The thing is, now...my emotional life has tipped...into scary places. And, I fear that I am broken.

This really started for me eight years ago. I won't go into details...but it was the beginning of my experience in the brutality of loneliness. It started as a misguided battle for my daughter, and reached its pinnacle when my wife left me for someone else. So profound has that experience been that my life seems actually divided into a "before and after" the moment she delivered the news to me. Rage, addiction, loss, lashing out, driving people off, and a few ill-timed experiences with betrayal later...and I have constructed a life that frightens the hell out of me.

I remember being curled on our bedroom floor of our huge ocean front house, in the darkness of another sleepless night, praying to hear her tires on the gravel of our long driveway as she was coming home to me, wracked with sobs that had no sound. The only sound was of our two cats (our boys) running around chasing each other upstairs, and of the wind driving rain against the windows. Where we had lived was pretty secluded...and any noise I made was met with nothingness. The indifference of the pale walls inside, and the cliffs and the dark sea outside, settled within me a lonely and lost feeling that has never left me. There was no point in crying out loud...and there still isn't.

I am so blessed to have experienced being loved in my life. In the same blessing lies a sort of curse, in that having touched love, it's absence has seemed a terrible contrast...and I feel haunted by the memory of it. I'm also tangled in the fact that the people I ultimately drove away I still love very much. My wife I'm still in love with, my daughter doesn't even know me (or that not a day goes by that I don't think of her, and ache with regret), and my parents are afraid of me and have detached from my fate.

Don't get me wrong...there are a few people who love me vaguely, from afar. And, I'm LUCKY to have that. Still...it is hard to explain how sometimes a hug from someone who is a fleeting presence in my life only makes it worse.

I'm also not unconscious to the other great blessings that I have. I don't live in a refugee camp. I haven't had to witness the slaughter of people I love. I don't have to worry about where my food, shelter, clothing, or clean water will come from. I have all of my senses, and my limbs. I live in a free country. I am blessed in so many ways-as if I know the first thing about REAL pain...as if I would survive 30 seconds in a war zone. As if I would even WANT to.

But, there is this...

I can stand in front of an amazing sunset, or under an awe inspiring night sky with stars falling all around...the beauty burns bright and warm for a few moments...and then slowly, inevitably, if the incredible thing lingers...a transformation happens. It's like a cold stone turning over in my chest. I can't make it mean the same thing that it would if I wasn't alone. The more incredible it is the thing I am seeing, the more I want to turn to someone and say, "Did you see that?" And the heavier the absence and silence becomes.

I could win the lottery tomorrow, and walk into an empty apartment...if I had no one to share it with, I could give a flying f**k. People with fame, fortune, fast cars, designer clothes, jewels...if they are truly alone, that stuff is just a dance without music. The motion and sparkle might feel good...but if you have a brain in your head, that stuff means nothing on it's own. By the same token, I could be wearing recycled shoes-and if I have a person or a family to come home to-I could live in a shack made of sticks and be truly happy. I'd also have a reason to strive for more...for me and for them.

It's amazing how we learn to pretend that something more than love is the thing that really matters.

I haven't been able to safely listen to music for years...because music hits me like a two ton sledgehammer-and I fear it. I literally am afraid of it. The songs that vividly transport me back to happy times lost-times where I felt safe and warm and surrounded by love...those songs are unbearable. The songs that capture sadness nearly kill me. They come without warning, and they take me by surprise. You know what I'm talking about...something beyond mere recollection...you can taste, touch, smell, feel the memory...I can't do it...and some days I don't even want to walk through the grocery store for fear of what their "background/environmental" selections may be.

So...I was laying in my bed a few nights ago...awake at a ridiculous hour...and I thought of someone. I remembered something that left me aching so badly for them, it felt like my heart was going to just stop beating...and then abruptly I had tears spilling over onto my face...which I realized was still and expressionless.

There is no one to turn to, no one to hear...it is an emotion that is so thin and sharp, I have definitely cut myself on the feeling of it.  

The resident cat (who isn't even mine) sometimes comes up next to me on those serrated nights, and watches my face...and sometimes she will put her paw on my cheek. Animals are amazing...

Thank God for the cat.

Karmal Knowledge

I once had plans to open a coffee shop in a recology thrift store, I was going to call it "Instant Karma Coffee," and the tag line was going to be "Careful now. It's hot."

Then I moved to Arizona, where I realized that iced coffee would be the big seller...and I had to re-think my plans.

I've had to re-think a lot of things.

One of the things that I've given a lot of thought to (besides why my fitted sheet corner continuously pops off at night, or why cardboard milk cartons won't open without a hacksaw) is the whole concept of "karma."

The whole idea of "cosmic justice" is an interesting thing. It is VERY HARD to live in a world where people seem to get away with stuff that sucks...and not just "get away" with it, but appear to reap rewards from stuff that seems wrong.

If you have ever been stolen from, lied to, been cheated on, or generally been the victim of someone's selfish, unkind, cruel, or greedy behavior...it is hard to take when it appears to pay off for them.

And, sometimes, it does appear that way.

The guy who cheats at cards, and takes the pot. The lady who steals the steaks from the store, and then has the "free" steak dinner that night. The middle age guy who leaves his wife for his 23 year old secretary, and buys the Ferrari...he's having awesome sex, and..well...driving a Ferrari.

It is said that "crime doesn't pay." But, sometimes, it does. It just DOES.

It is said, "Nice guys finish last." And, often they do...after being trampled on. It just happens sometimes.

The same book that says, "An eye for an eye" also touts the virtues of "turning the other cheek."

Still, it is very hard to live in a world where we witness (or are directly impacted by) people doing icky things, and appearing to benefit from it. So...we rely on this idea that "the universe" will eventually set it right. That, "vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord." That SOMEHOW there will be a checks and balances...SOMEWHERE. That someone saw it, and as we sit broken, injured, altered, hurt, angry...these trespasses will ultimately result in those people "getting everything that they deserve."

I think we HAVE to believe this, because the alternative (that they steal your money and then go sunbathing in Bermuda) is too hard to take. We NEED to trust and believe that there is a greater justice that somehow WORKS.

My problem (one of many, I realize) is that I don't TRULY believe that. I think that the "dirty money" spends as nicely as the "honest" money...and that sociopaths are really just going to have a blast, because their conscience won't be in their way. I believe that if you smash your finger in a drawer, it isn't because you did something creepy last week. I just think it is random. I think that bad things happen to good people sometimes, and that selfish thieves often "make out like bandits."

I've had to come to terms with it...in my non "black or white" kind of internal world. You see, except in the cases of psychological pathology, I believe that character itself is a journey. As humans, sometimes we fly, and sometimes we fall. Some people are just jerks...but even jerks have moments where they are touched by compassion or kindness. And, conversely, sometimes exceptionally decent people do the WRONG thing. I cannot judge anyone, because my slate isn't clean.

So, here is what I have figured out for myself....in the throes of watching people reap great rewards from being giant a**holes...

I have BECOME Karma in my past, before I was better equipped to handle things...I mean, I was scary good at it. With a basic understanding of human nature, psychology, and some basic smarts...I have visited revenge. I mean, fire and brimstone, baby. I'm not talking keying somebodies car. Oh, no. I'm talking a family relationship in uproar, a romance derailed, a career in shambles...I've altered lives when I was victimized, because I thought I couldn't stay sane if I saw it "pay off" for these people...

I'm not going to go into sordid details...but, if you heard some of the stories, you would probably not debate with me whether or not they "deserved" it, although the last man who truly HURT me took the brunt for a lot of accumulated frustration from my "turning the other cheek." He picked a REALLY bad time to victimize me-which he did-and I may have used a bazooka to kill a fly...

I snapped. Yes, I did.

I thought I just couldn't walk away, because he had taken from me (along with others) something too close to my very source of being...and, on the surface, it was totally benefiting him. Stomping on ME in the most disgusting way was paying off for HIM...it just was...and witnessing and KNOWING that, I THOUGHT...was going to drive me insane. Well, it kind of did, actually.

I'm pretty sure my cheese slid off my cracker for a while, there.

I got "justice." Yep. Yay me. I got him, but good.

Except, I have realized something so simple...

Whether I am an instrument of "cosmic justice"...or whether or not someone "gets what's coming to them"...however it may happen, or NOT happen...I DO NOT get any kind of pleasure from someone else's hurt. Even when I WANT to. Even when I think I hate them. Even when I KNOW they "deserve" it.

I've caused tears. I've caused fear. I've made people regret that they have crossed me. I don't even want to argue the "rightness" or the "wrongness" of any of it. All I know is that, when I witness this "justice" that I set into in motion, all I have felt is sad, and empty, and I've wanted it to stop.

I don't have the answer here...because it is so weird. It's taken me years to fully realize this. I don't even take pleasure anymore from the idea of KARMA doing it on it's own. I really don't...because that means that I'm counting on the universe to make someone else suffer for doing a bad thing.

There are some very dark people in this world...people who torture, and kill...and actually take pleasure in the suffering of others. I don't have the answer on how to psychologically handle the concept of justice...except a suggestion that seems to have transcended the ages and to be espoused by every spiritual leader who has ever spoken truth...to espouse an ideal and principle that has been right in front of my face all along...to embrace the only concept that seems to sit peacefully in my life and my conscience...

I no longer hunger for JUSTICE, in the form of additional misery in order to set the scales right. I hunger for LOVE...I want them to see the light. I have.

I'm NEVER going to deliberately try to "get even" again. I don't have the stomach for it-which I have learned by witnessing that which was supposed to set me free. It feels wrong. So wrong.

Two wrongs don't make a right. It's true.

Love has finally hit me on the head like a hammer falling from the sky...

Which I probably deserved.