Love Languages

I love the idea of love languages.

You've heard?

There are five ways people like to be loved. Not to simplify an idea that somehow occupied the pages of an entire book, but some people like gifts, some people like touch, some people like quality time, some people like to hear nice things about themselves, and some people like for you to do nice things for them.

I like this idea. It's super cozy, just like any idea where I get to nicely compartmentalize people into little boxes in my mind. And while I think it's overly simplistic for a life partner (romantic or otherwise), it is useful for employee recognition. Like if public recognition makes Sally's skin crawl, it's nice to know that so you don't shame her when you're trying to appreciate her. If she wants a $5 Starbucks gift card instead, BLESS HER, THAT'S EASY.

So yes, ask your employees and volunteers. Pay attention that some people would rather get a nice card with a few words of praise instead of another Chipotle gift card for their birthday. It's not the magic of the languages, it's just being attentive.

Also, if someone gives you something, that was the point. Say thank you for being appreciated, acknowledged, or remembered. Then pass the intention along. Appreciate. Acknowledge. Remember.

When it comes to intimacy, I think it's too simplistic to pick a love language using an online quiz and deciding Now And Forever, this is how I love you.

People get touched out. Gifts are hard to shop for. Words are hard to come by sometimes.

Love is multilingual.

AND?

Control is not a love language, but boy can it disguise itself as one.

You can use nice words to be mean.

Recognition and service to shame.

Touch to contain.

Gifts to obligate.

(I have done all of these things).

“You owe me,” is how some people say, “I love you.”

(This is not love).

I'll leave that to Rumi, and Rupi Kaur, and poets who have a better sense of what it is. But I'll tell you what it's not.

I think love says – follow your inner calling, your own path. Be true to yourself, even if it isn't with me.

Love reminds you that you can swim - invites you out of the burning lifeboat to save you from the impending undertow.

Reciprocity, not transaction.

And here is the secret to know if you're loving with a side of control and manipulation: is it important that the person on the receiving end know that what was offered came from you?

Well.

Then.

Your gift, your service, your words, may have been a downpayment on future expectations.

And the only things more likely to cause suffering than unmet expectations?

Those you've paid for.

Sink the Ship

I spent this summer hoping.

Waiting.

(I had hoped never to do such a thing again).

There was a three week window that I spent primarily in bed or on the floor in front of the fireplace, lost in mental fog, exhaustion, and the after-effects of spiritual overspray.

I was sick, not just depressed, but it's a chicken/egg scenario in my world. And while I used to tolerate it or write it off as the weather or an anniversary of some travesty or another, this time I got mad.

And I let the anger out.

(My therapist will be so proud).

Which isn't why I did it – to be clear – but I have had other opportunities and let them pass by, or deflated them. I suppose I will give myself credit for saying “I'm supposed to tell you I'm angry with you,” earlier in the summer, which was indeed a step.

I wish that saying I was angry felt better, but it didn't make the anger go away. And that's not the point. The point is saying – your behavior is not ok, and neither are my boundaries.

Let's right this ship?

Or sink it.

I remain committed to the idea that I want to participate in friendship – relationship – whatever – as though we will be cordial in 5 years, whether we're married or passing on the street.

(That's my integrity speaking. I'm so glad I found her.)

I'm sitting with how often and how loudly and how clearly I have to describe and define my boundaries before I sound like border patrol, or put a sign in the window, “attack dog lives here,” or make a t-shirt that declares, “I'm a walking trauma bomb.”

My speech is either so muffled and overstuffed with softeners that the point is lost in the message, or unleashed and bloodthirsty.

I can work on that.

And I am. Clarity without fangs.

You stepped on my toes.

(or my heart)

Please don't do it again.

Angry, Out

I am so angry right now.

I haven't let myself be angry like this in years, or maybe ever. Normally I'm angry IN, seething and self-destructing and punishing myself. Looking for the cause, the mistake I made, the butterfly wingflaps that accidentally started the landslide or anguish.

The 'lack' in me that let tower crumble.

Now I'm angry out.

This is new.

The last time I remember this I was five. I said "bullshit" and the daycare mom tried to wash my mouth out with soap. I'll spare you the details, but I should have been charged with assault, although I was acting in self-defense.

(And I was five).

My Teacher, my dearly departed Hunter, would tell me to go for the bones of this anger. The marrow.

Dig, dig, dig.

It's a good thing I'm at my parents' house, and there is a garden, and work to be done, otherwise I'd probably have a friendly visit from the HOA or the police or the utility company, even though this digging is certainly in self defense.

Or preservation.

(Or destruction?)

There is a part of me that isn't coming into tomorrow.

The part who says:

"Tell me how to be good enough."

Fuck that part.

There is no such thing as good enough for another person.

There Is No Word For This

There is no word for this.

I have a recurring dream. Someone is chasing me. Sometimes I know who they are, and sometimes it's just a presence. I barricade myself in a room, I call 911, and cannot speak.

It is happening again.

I'm at war with my being, betrayed by my body.

Down for the count, with only the power of my mind to save me, and she's distraught and fatigued.

(there is no word for this).

There are Things that happen to those of us in bodies. Sometimes the plumbing gets stopped up, or the chi doesn't flow, or we do something to invoke shame.

If we're in man bodies, we have word for a broad range of dysfunction – emasculate. It could refer to any number of things, like the plumbing and chi, or the way we're treated by our partner or our boss or society. Castration on any level. Removing one's sexual force, one's gendered identity, one's power.

You get the idea, regardless of your gender. You feel the empathy or the victory. Pathos.

I think I feel this, in the way my body has betrayed me.

But I have no way to tell you.

There is no word for this.

I'm not fighting for a diagnosis – I don't need a pill or a listing in the DSM – but simply a way to convey to you the dream feeling of opening my mouth to report a very real terror, and having nothing to say.

I have so much to say.

For the partners of PTSD.

For the widow parents who have lost children.

For those who experience birth after death.

There is no word for this.

When the thing that is lost is not visible, unexplainable.

Unspeakable.

The First Step

The first step, as they say, is admitting that you are powerless, and that your life is unmanageable.

In my case, the powerlessness relates specifically to people, more specifically to men, and most specifically to romantic relationships (real or imagined) I have with men, and how I use them to PROVE the theory that I'm not good enough.

(to exist)

There's a thing they say, in the rooms of Al-anon, about how your role in not being treated like a rug, is perhaps not lying on the ground and allowing people to step on you?

In related news, I have removed the carpet from one stair. It took an hour, some prayer, and quite a bit of dexterity.

Bob Villa did not offer any support in this, nor did Jesus make an appearance.

Deep bows to The Man With The Staple Gun, circa 1981, whose diligence and dedication allowed me to burn three times the karma with all of the effort it took to remove each and every blessed one.

I have unending gratitude for Cynthia St. Aubin, who talked me through the simultaneous removal of the mental, emotional and spiritual carpet.

It's important, I think.

To get off the floor.

There Goes the Neighborhood

I came to a realization today.

Or maybe it came to me?

That I love my home - my canyon - my view into the world. 

Sometimes I fantasize about living in a small home in Denver, near the yoga studio. Surrounded by young families and promise, and the occasional hideous outlier of new/modern construction.

(There goes the neighborhood)

I would like to be there - to be one of the young families, but none of the homes I’ve seen seems to include the husband and kids. Is it wrong to post in the online neighborhood community site that I’m ISO a kind, funny, wise-ish, handsome-ish widow?

Divorcee?

(A vowel??)

Not wrong, but also not productive.

I also fantasize about housesitting for a year - bouncing from Bozeman to Newport with an occasional island trip to write books, just really enjoying my own company.

But the thing is, i know the sounds in my canyon. I know when the magpies and dogs get in on the game, that a bear is near. There are coyote pups here every year, howling their adorable baby yips to the moon. There were bobkittens before my life really hit the lows, and now there is a deer fawning underneath the neighbor’s deck.

The things I don’t love about my house are fixable. Expensive, maybe, complex and expansive in nature. Bob Villa remains unavailable, as he prefers the old charming homes with the new families, not the townhomes awkwardly leaping towards middle aged.

But next week the flooring people are coming, and the shaman, and A refinance is in order, and I’m going to try again with the roots and the owning it. Put effort into a place I’d like to love again.

This may not feel profound to you.

But remember: in your dreams, your house represents your life.

So.

There.

Gaslighting

It was a year ago.

I was gratefully holed up in a friend's condo in Telluride, and awkwardly sharing a room with DJ. Two twin beds, and a chair "for Jesus" between us.

(Jesus did not make an appearance)

I was a pendulum swinging wildly between the terrors of my most recent dating adventures and the stalking, which felt mostly like a game of tag where the rules kept changing every six seconds and my body couldn't make sense of chasing or being chased.

And it happened in an instant, just like it happened today.

Someone else screamed for help, and we ran.

(towards)

It isn't a question, or it shouldn't be. When someone screams for help, you run. You get help, or try to. You don't have to be the help, but perhaps you can summon help in some way. Tell an adult?

I ran towards, and DJ ran after me.

(maybe Jesus did, too?)

I listened to a podcast later today about the paralysis that falls over us when there are so many bystanders. We get all weird trying to decide who should get help and who should hold still. Who among us is a paramedic, and who has a working cell phone, and who else knows our precise location.

Zebras do not do this.

I'm thinking of this now as my twitter feed is becoming more and more ominous, more reminiscent of a hostage situation. Where do we go for help? Which adults do we tell? What kind of medic is trained to stop this kind of bleeding?

I've resorted to asking the abundance of empty chairs in my home what Jesus would do.

(no answers, so far)

Gaslighting isn't new to me. I survived that, and that was when it was mainly just me. Now it is the nation and the twitterverse who not only have no one to summon, but also don't know if it's actually this bad, or if they're crazy.

This is a hostage situation. Gaslighting disempowers and holds you hostage, and the way you fight against it is by remembering. By telling an adult. By not letting this become the new normal.