Journal

I just got back from zipping up and down the bay on a jet ski out at Middle River. And I am sitting in a therapeutic writing course now. I am doing these things because I am taking care of myself and trying to make sure I am planning time just for me.

It feels new and strange, because I used to have people who would make sure that my birthday was something special. Who would kidnap me and take me to wonderful places, plan wonderful things for me to do, or throw giant parties for me. And now I don’t. But I’m learning to do these things on my own.

I can’t say I’m great at planning these things yet, and so far most of the things I’ve planned have completely fallen through. But I’m learning that I really can do things spur-of-the-moment just fine, and I’m learning to be able to prepare things for myself better.

I am leaning into this. It’s not easy to do. But today, ripping around the jet ski, I felt wonderful. I felt alive. I threw myself off and crashed into the water. I had chicken and drank a Yoo-hoo. I danced with cormorants and ospreys, raced with speedboats and soared over waves. I felt pure joy as the water cascaded over me. And I was reminded that I can feel that anywhere.

Being my whole authentic self isn’t easy for me. I feel like there is so much of myself that I hide from the world sometimes, fearful that I’ll be too bright and scare them away. I’m slowly letting that go.

Part of that has been taking care of my home more. It’s still uncertain whether or not I’ll be able to keep it, but I decided to invest in it anyway. I built a meditation spot in my bedroom, and a shelf in my hallway to house bath and bed linens.

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What does Mother’s Day mean to you?

Mother’s Day has always been special to me, because I was born on Mother’s Day, and I am the firstborn. I made Mother’s Day for her. I miss being around my Mother for Mother’s Day. Sending things through the mail or talking on the phone feels empty to me; I just want to be with her. But the connection I have is all I’ve got.

I am doing something for my ex on Mother’s Day. Regardless of how things ended between us, one of the things I told her while we were dating was that I knew she would be a good mother. And I was absolutely right. She’s has helped me grow as a parent in ways I didn’t know that I could. So this Sunday, I’m taking her and our kids out for dinner. We are not together and that’s for the best, but she will always be their mother, and they deserve it.

What would the perfect weekend holiday look like? A perfect 72 hours. Who would you spend it with? What would you do?

Just imagining something perfect like that feels… hard. I’m so used to pain and heartache and difficulty. I can’t remember when I had a whole 3 hours in a row that felt like that, let alone 72. All I can really imagine is little glimpses of things.

I don’t have anyone special anymore that I can rely on to be with. And that feels like a really important component, but at this point, I’m so weary that I wouldn’t mind spending it alone.

But like I said, just glimpses. Most of the fantasy just involves sleep. Having just enough money that I don’t have to worry about it. Not being around a lot of people; but just one. Falling asleep on someone’s lap while she plays with my hair. Not worrying about food. Good music. Losing track of time. Feeling rested. Drifting in and out of being present, and not stressing about it. Having no physical pain. Having my mind feel clear. Breezes. Swaying hammocks. Water in the background.

That’s what really feels like ideal. And it feels so simple, so easily attainable, and yet so far away at the same time.

So. What am I going to do about it? I’m saving up. I know that. including airfare and an Airbnb, I can send a week it St. Lucia for $1,500. So, my goal is to raise that by August.

How would you be on a nudist beach?

I’ve never been to a nudist beach, but I have gone to a beach where there was nobody else around and been naked. It was freeing and peaceful.

Does anyone have your interest at the moment?

I think I’m going to stay away from dating for a little while.

I clearly have much to learn. And even more to unlearn.

Although I’m conscious of the damage I’ve endured and some of the warps on the reality that I make as a result, that doesn’t mean I’ve got them all figured out. I have a long way to go.

Things still affect me and trigger me in ways I’d like to have more control over. For myself and for those close to me. What’s been the hardest thing is trying to figure out which things are best healed by leaving them alone, and which are best healed by experiencing things new.

What’s been equally challenging is my own desire for companionship, and for that naked & raw feeling of emptiness to feel the warmth of someone near. That ache is an old one, and one I’m weary of feeling. But I know it’s draw can be raucously codependent and slowly pernicious.

Love is incredibly healing… Being able to give and receive it breathes life into me. It’s a salve on my burns & allows them to gently heal. It quite literally gives me solace when everything else in my life is excruciatingly hard. Even small bits leave me gasping for more.

My thirst for closeness is ravenous, and it scares me. Equally torrential is my desire to give, which I know can be inundating. All the while, there’s anger and bitterness for lost time and squandered love. A maelstrom of desires and affections and passions.

In the center of these is a hurt soul who just wants to be healed and to love. Who’s weary of being in pain and tired of the yawning solitude.

I know that I need to work on myself until I do it automatically. To get better at loving me until it’s second nature.

It’s… not automatic. It’s not second nature. I have to be reminded, even to do basic things for myself. That’s why the workout thread exists. My first instinct is to care for others, not love myself. That’s why I use the #Me hashtag exists on Twitter. They exist because I’m bad at it.

What makes it complicated is that I know unless I learn about dating and love and the basics of casual attention, I’ll be stunted in my growth. I’m less experienced in so many areas that I feel like a land mine to be around. That makes things so hard.

Though love from others injects me with an energy that helps me heal faster and helps me exercise my love for giving affection, it also can hurt people who I know I’m not perfect or ready for. That’s… really hard. And painful.

The reality is that I need to give to myself more. And recognize that I deserve it. I’m never going to be able to fully appreciate someone’s love for me if I can’t love myself.

It’s completely unfair to tarnish someone else’s gift just because I’m not taking the time to work on myself. So. I’ll focus on being single for a while.

Do you feel that there’s been an uptick in women flirting with you on now that you are no longer with your wife? And how does that make you feel?

Honestly?

On the one hand, it’s been daunting. It’s a lot. I’m definitely not used to all the attention and overtures. Some of them have been quiet notes of appreciation, some of them have been deep overtures of passionate attraction.

They’re all sweet. They’re all overwhelming to a degree.

I don’t know what rock I was living under before this point, but I was either oblivious to the attraction before, too lacking in self-assuredness, or just plain blind to my own positive qualities and wallowing in self-deprecation.

Either way; it’s felt like a dam has burst, and getting swept away in the affection while I am simultaneously learning to build my own appreciation for myself has been a wild ride.

The challenge has been to maintain the self-actualization supports I’ve been building, and not letting the attention be the only thing that keeps me afloat.

That was admittedly a problem for me while I was in my marriage; my entire self-worth and self-image were wrapped up in another person. And as soon as their view of me faltered or shifted in any way, I crashed and burned. Hard. Because I wasn’t supporting myself at all.

On the other hand; it feels wonderful. The glow of having people give you attention is like a salve on a burn after feeling neglected for so long. I’m taking great care to not become drunk on that feeling; it’s very easy to.

It’s important to me that attraction goes beyond the superficial. Attention on a selfie is nice, but do you want to build with me? Do you care about me as a person? Do you stick around with me when I’m having a rough day? Does my wildness scare you off? Does my vulnerability?

It’s interesting to see the flavors of attention I get. I’m someone who likes to give my whole self, sometimes recklessly, and it’s also teaching me how to be a little more measured, and how to protect myself.

I’ll likely never stop giving my whole self; I’ll just be careful.

Have you ever thought about changing your career? If so, what would you want to do?

If I knew I could support myself with it, I’d love to write more music.

I no longer judge or criticize myself. I am free to love who I am. I forgive myself.

This is unbearably hard to live up to.

I constantly shoulder the responsibility for virtually everything around me, whether its mine to take or not. This sometimes means fabricating things to be responsible for, or beating myself up for things that weren’t even my fault to begin with. Fighting this habit has been really really hard because sometimes I feel like I’m not taking responsibility for stuff when I finally release the weight of what I had burdened myself with.

Fortunately I have a couple of friends who help me forgive myself and to not take on more than is actually mine, but it still hasn’t become second nature.

There’s a website called Curious Cat which allows people to ask you anonymous questions. I signed up for a profile a while back, and occasionally go on to answer what people have asked me.

Most of the questions are pretty simple, but sometimes they go really deep. My answer turned into a mini-essay, so I’ve distilled it here.

Are you in a rush to get back to a relationship?

Yes. No.

I realized the other day that I’ve never in my life been purposefully single. I don’t know how to feel about that. It shook me up a lot a bit and like so much that’s been happening lately, really rattled me off track.

When I was in high school, I always wanted a girlfriend. I was daydreaming and fantasizing about just holding someone close.

It never happened.

When I look back and try to remember those times, it feels like a long, intense, ache.

When I moved to the states after graduation, something shook me loose. I took an extra year of high school to mitigate some of the culture shocks of moving from the village to the States.

I was popular for the first time ever, but not as a typically handsome jock teenager. I was rough, wild, aloof; I reinvented myself as a class clown and rapidly built a long list of meaningful but shallow friendships. But the girl I had a crush on was the one thing I wasn’t able to relax about.

I tensed up, was awkward, and instead of being wild and aloof, I was a brooding piano-playing poet. I couldn’t pull off the suaveness that later attracted her to someone else.

After my extra year of high school in the states, I left for college, losing ties with every last one of the list of friends. Freshman year was tough, but I eventually found a tribe of people who I felt at home with. I gave up on love, and on being able to satisfy the ache.

I fell into a relationship. One of the many girls I had a crush on kissed me out of the blue, and it turned into a 2-year relationship.

I was happy.

But I tried everything in my power to make sure that ache never came back. She didn’t see a future with me and one day cut off all connection with me.

I was broken.

I tried staying away from relationships for two years. My friends pulled and pushed me to leave my room. I had girls I had serious crushes on. But either they didn’t want to move forward, or I didn’t. The ache was cacophonous. It drove me mad. I was miserable and played it off while being wild.

I became best friends with a girl I had a crush on, but then let the crush go.

We did everything together.
She kissed me.
We were married for 12 years.

I was happy.

I did everything in my power to make sure that ache never came back. She wasn’t. I was too immature to separate what she was dealing with from my own issues. My own scars and my own aches made things worse.

I ended it.

For the first time in almost a decade and a half, I feel truly alone. So much of my purpose was wrapped up in the relationship, in making sure she was ok, in making sure we were good, in running toward the horizon and fighting for us.
And that’s gone.

Now I’m supposed to wield all that energy and intensity and pour it onto myself and help myself heal and grow. But most of the time it feels hollow. That ache feels like it is all I ever feel anymore, and sometimes it feels like it will swallow me whole.

Glimpses and possibilities of relationships peek through the haze, and though the crushes are rising up again, I’m petrified of them. I’m scared of messing it all up. I’m scared of the ache coming back even more. I’m scared that I’m too broken. I’m scared I haven’t healed properly.

So. Am I in a rush to get back into a relationship?

Yes. I want to feel that glow again. I want someone to give to. I want to be held.

No. I am tender and sore. I have an ache that would swallow you. I haven’t grown enough. I’m unstable. And I’m really afraid of being hurt.

There are even people close to me who want to help, who want to ease me along with the healing, and I’m afraid of overloading them and crushing them.

I’m even afraid of answering questions like this, afraid of what my own reflection will look like as I unearth it.

Some days I feel good. I feel loved, and feel secure, and feel like I’m actually growing and healing.

Then there are days like today, where I feel like I’m disintegrating in a heap of flames. I’ll probably feel better tomorrow. After I get some real rest. But right now I feel fragile.

Do you still believe in marriage?

Not in the way I did.

Dragonfly out in the sun,
You know what I mean.
Butterflies all havin’ fun,
You know what I mean.
Sleep in peace when the day is done,
That’s what I mean.
And this old world,
Is a new world,
And a bold world,
For me.

—Nina Simone

Today is the first day I live as someone who is divorced.

Though it was years in the making, the process ended with a quick thunderclap. I worried about it, and like most things I worry about, I tried doing research into how divorce worked. But I couldn’t find anyone who could tell me what the process was like.

My ex and I got up early, took the kids to school, and headed to the courts. We stopped to get our Separation Agreement notarized at a small mailbox shop on the way, and picked up some Dunkin Donuts. It felt like rocks in my gut, but I forced myself to eat. I knew going in on an empty stomach would have been worse.

Baltimore courthouses are in a cluster just Northeast of the harbour, and because they’re all together, we didn’t know exactly which one to go to. A friendly sheriff helped us in the right direction, across the street from where we thought we were to be.

It was odd being there; it was the same courthouse that I had done many protests at, where my friend Randy Gloss had been arrested, where Keith Davis Jr.’s court hearing was… it was strange.

We went in and the sheriff in charge of scanning people with the metal detector was barking at everyone, clearly having a miserable morning. I stuffed all of my electronics and my belt into my jacket so that it would be easier to get through. But then he told me I HAD to wear my jacket. I fumbled everything back out and got through.

3 massive LCD screens bolted to the wall had the names of everyone who was assigned to hearings for the day, and what room they were meant to report to. However, though the list was sorted by name, not all the cases were by last time. Ours was by first. My ex finally saw where we were supposed to go, and we got in line to board the ancient elevators to the third floor.

The courtroom was different than I expected; beautiful art-deco-brutalist woodwork, punctuated by technological additions like CCTVs and mics and something that looked like an XBOX motion scanner. It was cozy, with paned windows lining one wall looking out over a roof; it felt like a small chapel. Several other people were already in the room, but nobody sat together. We took a pew together in the front.

Immediately, the court clerk asked if I had provided the proof of how I had done the calculations for the child support figures I had put down. My heart sank. Though I’d gone over everything in painstaking detail, the tool used to calculate the figures wouldn’t print. I’d saved a copy on my computer but didn’t have it with me. Fortunately, I remembered all the numbers and managed to fill it out on my phone.

There were several cases before ours, which felt awkward. We watched several divorces play out in different ways in front of us; couple’s heartwrenching moments playing out feet in front of us. A couple in which one parent almost lost child custody because they were 30 minutes late, who then argued with the magistrate. A couple who had been married for over 25 years, who were battling over the deed to a house in foreclosure. And then… it was our turn.

After verifying the pronunciation of our name a bunch of times, I asked about a law that had just gone into effect in Maryland. Starting October 1st, a full year of separation is no longer required for a Mutual Consent Divorce. Though I understand the goal of the original law; to make sure that a couple had a waiting period before they rushed into a divorce, the law essentially made it a tax on the poor. Couples who couldn’t afford a second residence (like us) really could not get a Mutal Consent Divorce, because housing is so expensive.

The magistrate said we did qualify, but that we’d have to file an addendum, which we could do right then and there at the clerk’s office downstairs. We went down, filled out the paperwork, and came back up. The magistrate wanted time to look over our separation agreement while we did that.

I had put in a lot of research and time into the separation agreement, and my ex and I worked through the details in minute ways. It’s an odd thing; it is essentially a set of compromises between a couple that gets solidified into law when a couple gets divorced. It details out things like child custody, alimony, child support, dividing up debt and assets, and a bunch of other stuff.

The magistrate spent a good amount of time on it, carefully questioning us about every detail, making sure we both consented to every line item. I started to feel odd; why was she doing all this? I thought that this was just supposed to be a scheduling meeting so we could come in later…

She kept going, and then finished up with “very good, you’ll get a certificate in the mail.” I was confused. I raised my hand. “You mean we don’t have to come back to court?” Had this just happened? She smiled. “Not unless you really want to.”

Though the change in the law had happened a week earlier, we were the first case she’d seen it actually play out. Normally it takes months between filing and your first court appearance, so nobody had even applied for this new method. We were on of the fastest divorces the magistrate had ever seen. “I see the worst of people in here,” she said, “you two actually have your stuff together.”

We walked out, shell-shocked. We talked about a few things as we made our way back to the car, but I don’t remember any of it. Had this just actually happened? It felt sudden. Unrushed, but quick. We’d done all the work. It was over.

It felt like a tooth that had been waiting to come out for a long time. That needed to come out. And now that it was finally out, it was good. But also a deeply strange feeling.

I was exhausted. The weight of everything hit me all at once; slamming into me like a cold front rushing down the mountains. The pain was gone, but the labor it took to make everything work, to make everything just right, the mental preparedness I had to do just to get through it… the release of that was overwhelming.

Divorce is not something I had ever wanted. But it was something that was necessary. I knew it had to be done. It had been a last resort; a way that finally allows healing I needed, to grow in the ways I needed to grow, to protect the kids, to be able to be who I needed for them.

As I woke up today, everything felt different. I stepped outside; the entire sky was lit up in gold. The sun peeking through the limbs of the trees on the horizon. The air was cool, crisp. It is the first day that felt like fall.

It is a new day.