Without Without

Posted on by Jen

I could write some long and clearly clever thing.  I could tell you that I went to Target today, and yesterday for that matter, and remind you:  still, I have changed.  Heavily.

I could tell you that I don’t like blog culture, which has turned into Facebook “pimping” and trolling around for more “Likes.”  It has become watered down and overstuffed, clogged and redundant.  Good writers lost in–as always, I am blunt–a murky pool of show-offs and soap-boxers and wanna-bes.  I’m not talking about you, or you, or you.  I’m talking about the big picture.  The list of irreverent titles that would have been cute a decade ago, but are now contrived.  It’s too much.  And it’s not the first time I’ve had the sneaking suspicion that I just don’t fit in here. 

I could thank you for reading and commenting, for buying me panties and giving me hugs–both real and virtual.  (And really, I just went back to a gut-wrenching post from a year ago, and the notes of encouragement left me in momentary doubt of the decision I’m about to make.  You have lifted me up and you have mattered, occasional readers.  Really.)

In the past, I have torn down stopped blogs.  When it’s over, it’s over, right?  Click. 

Well.  For now, I am leaving this one up.  You never know.  I may wander back.  I might have something to say.  I might want to read the whole thing–in order–laugh and cry with my former self, massage the parts of me that are sore and tired, applaud the honesty and bravery and solid, determined footing in the shifting sands of change. 

I like the work I’ve done here.  I like the words and the learning and the transformation. 

But I don’t like hanging around this space, with the big, bad word “Without.”  I don’t want to dwell or dissect or digress.  I don’t want to ask folks who will probably never actually read my posts to “Like” me.  I don’t want to dream up things to say about Target, for the sake of cohesiveness. 

To make a long story short, my work is done here.

Year Ago

Posted on by Jen

A year ago I was intermittently thumbing through the hours in my mother’s hospital room, and wandering around Hollywood while she napped.  I am wondering now, as I think about that, if the most beautiful Harvest Moon is often glimpsed before the ship finally goes under, if maybe–maybe, maybe, maybe–all of life’s questions become abundantly clear just before amnesia, confusion, or a wrong turn that leaves your average girl–or a storybook character, if you will–lost in the woods with nothing but a basket and a loaf of bread.

My mom will never be the same.  Heart surgery was a turning point that she questions and curses daily, while still holding beautifully optimistic faith in yoga and acupuncture and Match.com.  Ohhh, California. 

I remember walking those streets and just adoring the incongruent mid-Winter sunshine.  California did–for the first time in ages–feel like home; although I couldn’t admit that at the time.  I’m still kind of embarrassed by the freakery of my sunny, happy, meticulously casual home state. 

I was (vaguely) autonomous for the first time since becoming a mom.  Although I didn’t have much time to think of anything other than motherhood, what it has meant to me; what it has meant to have my own mother in my life, and what it would mean if she suddenly left it.  Clearly, it could happen at any time.  She was lucky.  We were lucky.

In Los Angeles, in that hospital, on walks past orange trees with roots buckling up sidewalks and happy hibiscus and bogonias blooming without a worry of frost, I missed my children in puncturing, sudden bursts.  I called them–aching, longing.  How can I explain what I want to explain?  How do I dare keep writing about my life as if it truly is an open book? 

Here you have it.  I had a dull awareness that I didn’t miss my then husband.  Not really.  Not in the way that I should.  I didn’t really want to talk to him on the phone.  And I don’t think he really wanted to talk to me.  It doesn’t make sense to play chicken or egg with that one.  While I didn’t really miss him–not really–I missed him immensely with that realization.  I missed our time in Italy, which we would always desperately try to get back to, even though our time on the island of Sicily wasn’t free of strife, and, in retrospect had it’s share of red flags. 

I missed what I thought we were and what I made us out to be, what I could no longer convince myself that we were…and I missed all the big hopes and plans. 

More than anything, walking around and worrying about my mother, I missed me.  A girl who was–ugh–undoubtedly a certain way because she’d grown up in Southern California, the–ugh–only child of two slightly selfish and slightly wonderful–ugh–World Bridge Champions.  A girl who hates that she can’t talk about herself without throwing in a heap of ugh.  A girl who became everything she was meant to be when she herself became a mother.  A girl who writes.  A girl who feels things so acutely that life is actually magical, and also exhausting. 

I don’t know.  It’s probably normal when your children hit this age or that, to remember that you are something other than a mom, that you were, at one point, a person who only had to look after her own person.  It happens when, quite blissfully, a son or a daughter starts to see that you are indeed human.  My kids now know that I am a writer and a doula and a fan of Harry Potter, but they didn’t always.  I am no longer just breast milk and survival and intensity and first love.  Bittersweet, ain’t it? 

Whatever I’m trying to say…it was intensified by this final initiation into the “Grown Up Club.”  Taking care of your own mother, taking forced time away from your own children. 

What a difference a year makes.  I still miss me.  Wonder–where is she, who is she, and what is she so afraid of?  I am, as they say–ugh–finding myself.  But then, most likely, I haven’t given myself nearly enough credit for what I have endured, accomplished, and learned in this last year, and for the myself that I have found.

In our Blood?

Posted on by Jen

I sometimes get defensive about being an only child. 

It’s not just because of the shit wrap we get around town, only to be rivaled (barely) by the desperate and dysfunctional middle.  You know, Marcia Marcia Marcia and all that. 

It’s not that I mind being considered spoiled, bratty, or self-centered.  I’m not going to waste my breath explaining that I do play well with others.  YES I DO! 

I get a little wrinkled about the label, because it’s not entirely accurate.  Growing up, I had cousin–two years older–who truly was like a big brother.  We practically lived together through most of our childhood, bouncing from his place to mine to Grandma’s.  And he did officially move in to our house on a couple of occasions, because his mom was 10,000 times more screwed up than Jan Brady. 

I could fill you up with funny childhood tales of our nutty California family.  I could tell you about our inside jokes and our fights and later-in-life adult friendship. 

But what I want to tell you about is how spooky alike we are.  We are–in our not so only child-ness–both only children.  Of divorce.  Of serious bridge players.  We both tend to be the big emotion/crying one in a romantic relationship.  We both love 80′s New Wave music.  We shred at Guitar Hero.  We both love cats.  We both love to joke about how, in our family, “having a cat” is a sign of mental health…even though–clearly–it’s not.  We both turned out to be writers.  He finished his MFA.  I left mine midway to move to Italy.  Both of us have done the stay-at-home parent thing.  It’s harder, for sure, and more isolating for him. 

I am so proud of him for raising his little boy, and cringing as I write that because I know that he’d hate me patting him on the back in a “good for you” way like it’s “so crazy” for him to be the one at home.  But for certain, he’ll also understand that I don’t mean it that way.  I just say what I say, with the best of intentions.

This parenting bond is a wonderful share.  Adam knows.  He knows the unyielding, thankless, monstrous nature of laundry.  He knows that the length of a day can be eternal, and yeah, also pretty cool.  Adam was a sweating, screaming trader on the floor of the Chicago Stock Exchange before doing the MFA.  High stress, exhausting job.  I know that he would call parenting–while far more rewarding–more challenging.

Yeah, I love him.  He’s my cousin brother. 

When I started this blog, he liked the writing but didn’t necessarily “get it.” 

Then he moved to the suburbs. 

And…

Guess what?

My cousin is falling in love with Target.  In our phone chat tonight, he tossed the following phrases my way:

“Shit, I can just get my groceries there.”

“Yeah, they have the organic…”

“There’s the dollar toy section!”

“I bought three pairs of exercise pants.  I didn’t try them on, but I figured…I’ll be back in a few days.  They’ll take anything back, even if I don’t have a receipt.”

I swear to you, I started jumping up and down in my own Target exercise pants.  And what’s worse, I started pushing the chai stroll.  Do you Starbucks there?  Can’t you just imagine how nice it is to grocery shop with a warm beverage?

I am, of course, somewhat reformed.  But Adam is just starting his journey!  Oh, the excitement in store. 

Nature, nurture.  Who knows why us two kids from two completely different sisters (one an addict, one a perfectionist) were cut from the same cloth?  One more thing in common. 

Big brother, welcome to the Super T.

Year End

Posted on by Jen

Oh no.  It’s the last day of the year which–here we go–brings about end of the year reflection from Little Ms. Reflection.  And she hasn’t been around her own damn blog much lately, so she’s probably got too much to say. 

Yes and no; yes and no.

Let’s try to keep it short and sweet, shall we?  Don’t want to waste the whole night thinking about what has come before. 

Where I was and what I was doing last year at this time seems like…well, a lifetime ago, really.  And because you know I like to beat you over the head with what I really mean, here it is: 

It seems like much more than a year has passed.  If I didn’t have the knowledge that I am only 37 years old, I would guess about a century.  And also, it feels as if there was that lifetime and then this one.  And, because life is messy–and damn it we should let it be–the two zig zag and nod to each other here and there. 

But for certain, I have changed.  Really, really, really, and then some.  And I have found this sweet little truth in the process:  the things that were true to me as a girl are still there.  I am still me and there is only one of me and that’s the way it will always be.  Doesn’t matter how many years of the last decade were a mistake.  Doesn’t matter that I have suffered or sparkled or embraced motherhood.  There are no mistakes and that earth keeps spinning and you wake up to the sun and have noses to wipe and new mothers to uplift and too many stories to tell. 

As for those things that the former little girl and this big grown-up have in common…  We love kitties.  And grilled cheese.  And having something important and exciting to do early in the morning.  And also, staying up late.  We love to make people happy.  And we also love a good argument.  The Never Ending Story.  Really sappy love songs.  Writing.  And yes, for those of you waiting for at least one juicy tidbit, the same blue pair of blue eyes that first made us feel like holding hands would be nothing short of a miracle. 

To, once again, re-quote my old crutch, OK Go:  “Nothing ever doesn’t change.  But nothing changes much.”

But…wow…changes both external and internal.  All for the good, in the end, I am certain.  Really certain, finally. 

Meanwhile–and this is saying something, coming from one who cries when the cat does something cute–I have cried more tears than I ever thought possible. 

To quote Anais Nin, “Last night I wept. I wept because the process by which I have become woman was painful. I wept because I was no longer a child with a child’s blind faith. I wept because my eyes were opened to reality….I wept because I could not believe anymore and I love to believe. I can still love passionately without believing. That means I love humanly. I wept because I have lost my pain and I am not yet accustomed to its absence.”

Something like that. 

Anyway.  Back on track.  Last year.  This time.  A lifetime ago.  With foreshadowing, perhaps.  With digging heels in damn-it-I-can’t-fail stubbornness…but, of course.  

Here is something I remember:

Reading MSN’s “Romance Predictions for the Year 2011.”  My homepage announced that it would be the year of break-ups.  Old couples would be hanging on for dear life, while brand new ones would sore like firecrackers.  I can’t make this shit up.  It said that those born under the sign of Aries (I know, here I go again, bear with me) would have special, super trouble sticking it out.  And my then partner was an Aries and I’d felt like we were in trouble for some time already and bladdy bladdy blah, you know the rest.  I felt so nervous at reading this.  As if some crack-pot astrologer, novelty writer was telling me, “Jen, I know you thought you had a little more time, but it’s about to go down…now.”  Then my mom had a heart attack and I couldn’t look at life in quite the same way and bladdy bladdy…

Lots of people broke up this year.  Demi and Ashton.  The people who start with K’s who I refuse to mention.  The White Stripes (shout out, birthday buddy).  And lots of people my mom knows.  (She made sure to let me know that, “Something was in the air.”)

Anyway, that was then.  And now, finally, we get a new year.  Some people think it will bring the apocalypse, but at least MSN is not naming it ”The Year of Break-ups.” 

Usually, I get sad on New Year’s Eve.  Not because plans fall through or fall short or fail to be the most epic and romantic and profound ever.  Because I tend to mourn the passing of time.  In the past, I’ve sort of thought of each passing year as a marker which puts me farther away from certain fond memories and closer to my kids becoming teenagers and hating me.  But I swear I’m an optimist.  Deep down.  I’m not kidding!

This year I’m honestly excited.  And feeling the “happy” in “Happy New Year.”  I am, at least this second, in the fucking moment, even though I’m rolling my eyes because I’m so over people saying, “in the moment.”  I am truly expecting a future as big as my damn feelings, an impressive lack of inertia, a heart still hopeful after dusting off the hurt, and sure, Anais, celebrating the fact that I am a woman…at last.  A damn good one, too.

Have a bright BRILLIANT night, Target Shoppers…and those of you who could care less about the Super T but have–in reading through the overuse of the word heart, the chai obsession, and the bullshit–come to care about me.  

(Both Little Girl Jen and Big Girl Jen REALLY love waterslides.  Both are also getting concerned–and a bit of a headache–from talking about themselves as if they are not the same person.)

Two Baristas for Every Girl

Posted on by Jen

Remember when I was a little rattled by my big city Target? 

My kids had meltdowns there.  I had meltdowns there. 

Then I talked with a nice cashier about divorce. 

And I found a new barista. 

And was refunded a lost bag of groceries.

And I made some rules–which, upon further experimentation, I can now write in stone.  The rules are golden, my friends.  When I follow them, Target is bliss.  When I break them, I get a few grey hairs.  I recently broke them all, while looking for a new fake Christmas tree, Thanksgiving weekend.  Live and learn, friends.  Live and learn. 

But when I follow my rules, I have to say…

I love Target Midway!

Despite the lightrail construction, I now know at least three routes which get me there in five minutes (that’s less time than the drive from my old house in Rosemount to the famous Pilot Knob Super T). 

I know my way around the store.

There are not one but two baristas who sort of recognize me (OK, still not proud of that).  And these baristas, while far cooler and therefore a bit less entertaining than the chaotic, soy milk obsessed teen of the suburbs, seem happy enough and recently lured me into a conversation about Twilight.  While I can’t say that’s totally my thing, it made me giggle. 

And recently, when my son was throwing a fit about not getting a toy and I appeased him by letting him pick out Cars 2 juice boxes (I know), only to have him throw another fit about that; I put the juice boxes back on the shelf and finished my shopping with him shouting at me…and a woman cruising through the meat section put her hand on my arm and said, “You’re a good mom.  You’re doing the right thing.” 

Did I tell you?  I love Target Midway!

The city girl is back.  And frankly, I’m embarrassed that I was so hasty in my assessment of my new neighborhood store.

Now, I kind of go there a lot.  So much that I have, at times, stopped to wonder if I need another intervention.  I go there for a coffee break; I go for little grocery runs (because living on the 3rd floor of an apartment building makes big runs hard) and “emergency” craft supplies.  Hmmm.  Yes I do. 

But I show restraint.  I don’t buy, buy, buy.  I don’t wander much.  I buy what I need, what I truly love (soft pajama pants on sale); I shy away from what’s cheap and junky and from what is–in hot pink and lime green coolness–generic in the obvious Target aesthetic. 

Not doing much Christmas shopping there–sticking to the Christmas lists and the actual grocery list. 

It’s as if Target and I have been through couples counseling and managed to come through to the other side.  Which is sort of funny, all things considered.  Oh, how unexpectedly this journey has gone.  Oh, how my life story keeps looping upon itself–one thing leading to another until you’re back where you started, sort of, while at the same time unrecognizable and forcibly square.  Yeah.  Anyway…

Oh, how I sort of want to see Breaking Dawn so I can further chat with the boys who now brew the chai.  How I’m actually quite relieved that they occasionally push a baked good or use a bad pun, but don’t try to infuse a damn thing with cider or carmel or strawberry lemonade or soy.  They let me like what I like.

And did I mention that I hit the “Like” button for Target?  On Facebook.  Serious, huh?  Finally, all the world knows how I feel.  Because I don’t think I’d made that clear…

(Year) Without Apology

Posted on by Jen

I can finally say that the smoke is starting to clear, the storm is thinking about passing, life will move on, and–go on–pick a complimentary cliche of your liking. 

For those of you who are new here, 2011 has been quite a year indeed.  I started this blog in the fall of 2010 because my life didn’t fit right.  I didn’t recognize myself.  I didn’t approve of my own choices.  I didn’t feel happy in my marriage.  I didn’t tread lightly down the path I was taking, but I didn’t know how to turn back and I couldn’t see any promising forks in the road.  None that would be very easy, anyway. 

I cried and screamed and stomped my feet in the basement of a big house in the suburbs.  I admitted, finally, after so long, that I was not happy in my marriage.  I shook my bones, unwillingly, and hid my face in my hands.  It felt like–I kid you not–confessing to a horrific crime.  Once you let yourself see, you can’t unsee.  There’s no pretending once you stop pretending. 

I had kept myself up with my writing and my friends and my doula work and my beautiful, hungry-heart filling children.  My kids–yeah, they made happiness possible.  I cringe now as I think of that.  A bit of a burden for them to bear.  And I dare say that I loved them more than I should have, if that’s possible.  They both have slight center-of-the-universe complexes that I am carefully and lovingly trying to tone down, just a touch.  They can be my most important thing without being everything.

But anyway…

Their father was unhappy as well.  I know that he was.  He knows it too, deep down.  In fact, I felt that I was always scrambling to make him happy–with big life decisions and big moves and meals and finally, that time I tagged along with him grouse hunting, even though I hate guns and don’t get it.  I still did it, last fall, right before starting this blog.  I did it willingly and happily, drinking boxed wine and getting amorous with him on a tree stump. 

It’s hard to say what was the beginning of the end, because I can think of pinpoints that dot the entire history of our marriage.  There’s a little one that makes me close my stinging eyes every time I think of it–our wedding night.  Did I know then?  Maybe, surprisingly and suddenly–I feared.  Another big something happened in that first year that made me hold on to our committment with wet palms and tight knuckles.  That New Year’s Eve after our daughter was born when I wrapped her up and blankets and took her for a walk, crying so hard and feeling so tired.  I don’t know.  Of course, of course, a thousand times over, it wasn’t all bad.  Obviously.  Of course, between the ominous pinpoints, I loved him.  It’s hard to see that now, but I think I did. 

Then, good old hindsight.  I can say now, with 20/20 certainty, that it just wasn’t right.   

It takes courage to say that, by the way.  I have bit my tongue so hard these last few months, I’m surprised blood isn’t spurting from my ears and nose, filling up my throat until I choke on so many words which as a writer, I can’t help but want to spill. 

I’m scared to say things.  I’m scared of “how I’ll seem” and I’m scared of messing up the shaky parenting relationship that I’m trying to hold on to.  And in my little fucked up way, I’m still trying to make him happy.  Although I’m getting better at not worrying so much about that.  I have been told a few times over the last year that I have to emotionally divorce this man in order to truly move on.  I think I’m getting there and I think that–essentially–it means not worrying so much about how he’s doing or what he’s thinking or what he’s saying about me or how much I need to protect him or…

Even to say that it wasn’t right isn’t the whole picture, because every step you take gets you to the next and you need to learn and you need to live and you need to take chances and try.

So, way back when, I wrote a piece for this site called “The Straw.”  I haven’t even gone back to reread it, but I remember being scared as hell to write it.  It talked about how my failing marriage was the last straw in the huge haystack of things that needed to change.  I blamed his schedule and our house and our need for things; computers and distractions and crushes on rock stars.  So, I gave up hobby Target shopping and put the rest under a microscope.

Again with good old hindsight I see now that…

Everything, even Target, was a symptom of the thing I was trying so desperately to save.  Everything was a symptom, not a cause.  And to eliminate Target–and other excess–was like taking cough syrup.  It’ll dry up the mucus, but the virus has to work itself out either naturally or with some vitamins, chicken soup, and good rest.  Or maybe something more drastic…I don’t know.  This metaphor isn’t my finest.

Point being:  everything has to run its course.

And, of course…it’s never about one thing.

Well, we made some life changes.  I bent and fretted and tried things and suggested things.  Found myself saying, for the umpteenth time in our marriage, “Remember Sicily?  Let’s get back to Sicily us.  That version of us is still in there.  I know we’re still in there.”  Blame it on Sicily is sure to be a future blog post, I’m sure. 

In the midst of it all my mom had a 2nd heart attack.  Damn, she’s lucky!  Some don’t make it through a first.  And she had double bypass surgery.  And, as her only child, I went out to California and supported her–on my own.  Year Without was there as I struggled with this big parent-child shift, as I both floundered and embraced the momentary autonomy–the first I’d really had since becoming a mother.  

We don’t need to go through the exact details of this.  Predictably, seeing my mom’s heart and lungs work by machine gave me one of those Oprah-esque “life is short” moments.  What exactly are you doing with your life?  (Ah ha!  And you get a car!)

The time alone, under grave circumstances, in my native city, put me in touch with who I really was, actually, and what I’d been missing.  And it wasn’t California. 

I acknowledged, as I wandered around the dreamy lead singer’s neighborhood, how horrible I felt about the many, many thoughts and fantasies I’d entertained–because it was beyond the passing daydream.  How a part of me so desperately wanted something, someone different.  To be fair, the next heart beat, every time, so so so wanted it to be my husband.  I wanted him to be the man who occupied every thought and feeling, who made me feel loved and connected and sexy and alive.  While I beat myself up about thoughts (and really, we can’t control our thoughts) then, I can say now, finally, that this was also a symptom, not a cause or a reason or the personality defect of an eternal crush puppy and hopeless romantic.

In California, all hopped up on life lessons and hospital bleach and sad freedom, I came close to random and spontaneous unfaithfulness.  But I walked away.  I so wanted my marriage to work!

I came home and felt disconnected and disliked.  I told my husband everything and declared a state of emergency.  Because I believe in marriage.  I believe in love.  Because I am not this person, but look–we’re drowning. 

I did many, many things in that last month to try.  I will not list them or elevate them.  And I will not go so far as to express specific disappointment or play the blame game or paint myself pretty or villainize. 

But I know, in my heart of hearts, that while the end seemed–to the outisde world who should probably mind their own business–very quick and messy, what really happened was this:  I courageously and nervously removed my finger from the hole in the boat, knowing inside (but desparately wanting to be wrong) that at some point, we were going to sink. 

And courage.  Well.  Fuck.  I’ve needed so much that I’ve wondered, countless times, if I’ve tapped my wells dry.  But, thankfully, it keeps coming; I keep finding the bravery.  And I keep finding myself–still–surprised at how often I need to drill the source.

Mediation was terrifying, big decisions were made, responsibilities placed on various shoulders, anger faced and released and repressed.

I sometimes feel afraid of the suburbs where we made our last attempt at a life together.  It is hard–so hard–to face the life that made me say, “Something’s funny.  Can’t hide anymore.  Start with Target?”

It takes courage to face the mommy crowd, who love me dearly but who sometimes treat me–unintentionally–like an anomaly or a fragile tea cup or a warning.

It takes courage also to say to myself, “I miss my friends, but the book club discussion of Revolutionary Road–of all things–is just not where I need to make an appearance.”  Courage is more than facing scary things.  It is also knowing your limits and humbling yourself to the end of recovery.

And it’s knowing that sometimes you have to face the music, man up, and take the kids to the State Fair…even though it was one thing you remember doing happily with him.  Breathe.  It’s something different now.  That’s life.

It’s responding to your children’s questions and thoughts and fears while maintaining confidence in the fact that you made the right choice, that this is better for everyone in the end.

It’s facing Christmas–your favorite time of the year–with uncertainty and doubt and a renewed need for something real and happy; and an acknowledgment that the holiday hullaballoo was when you appreciated the idea of family the most, even though you kind of dragged him along for the whole fa la la, trying so hard to drum up something Rockwellian and soulful for the children, finding yourself exhausted and empty and weeping on December 26th.  

In an odd way, I feel kind of peaceful with my (in comparison) ambivilance towards Christmas this year.  I am not seeking false or hyped-up things or festivities to make me happy.  Maybe, effortlessly, Christmas will finally mean to me what it’s always meant to me, if that makes sense. 

What would have been our 9th wedding anniversary came and went, as it does every November, along with it a mix of emotions from relief to restlessness to apathy to a deep fear that I might make the same mistakes again.

Although I don’t think it’s really possible.  Hindsight sticks.  Once you see, you can’t unsee.

I have written about divorce and marriage here and there on this blog.  I have also written things and then deleted them, for all of those reasons I mentioned before.  On one of those occasions, a friend of mine said, “Go on.  I think it’s time for some things about your marriage to go out into the universe.  They’re just your feelings after all.”

Right.  They are.  And I’m still very, very careful.  And as careful as I am it still takes a big, big sip off the courage line to send these thoughts up and out.  What am I so afraid of?  That he’ll hate me more?  That I’m doing something wrong?  Heck.  I’m a personal essayist.  I even get paid for it…once in a while.  Why would he or anyone else expect anything other than some version of this?

My mother keeps telling me to stop apologizing for my existence, that I haven’t done anything wrong, that I’m good and deserve to be happy.  For all the times I’ve mentioned her in therapy, Mom’s good like that.  And I’m so grateful that this year didn’t include her heart actually stopping.

So, as I carefully, and now unappologetically write about my life here–and you’ve been so kind to follow along as I do so–I think the time has come to share something else. 

Ready?

I am in love and in a relationship.  And have been.  There.  Said it.  And as tempted as I am to explain myself and assure you that he did not steal me away and that we did not do anything wrong…which is all true…what I really need to say is that I want to be OK with myself and stop–as my mom says–appologizing for my existence.  This is simply how my life has turned out.  And life is messy.  And people judge.  And people think they know.  And I must be brave about all that.

And it might have been too soon and too big and too weighted and too clouded, but we if we could all stop for a minute and untighten our shoulders, I think it would be healthy to collectively acknowledge that life doesn’t fit in a neat little box, on a socially agreed upon timeline, or in picture-perfect fashion that’s designed to make you sleep better at night.

It takes courage to love again after you’ve put your whole heart into something…oh, what’s the word…I don’t know.  Into something that’s failed.  Into something that has hurt you.  Into something that brought out the worst in you.  Into something that eventually made you feel lonely and unbeautiful.  Into something that you let happen and you took equal part in. 

It’s taken a lot of courage to love someone you’ve known for many years, thus finally changing a relationship that’s been a sort of constant.  Yeah, I guess I’m sharing that information too.  This is someone who I loved at first sight.  Who I shared my first kiss with (our only until this tumultuous year).  Who lived on the opposite coast as me in the beginning, and then sort of close by in the neighboring state when I went to college, and then finally, now, in the same state–a random one, really, in the grand scheme of things.  Isn’t life magical and spine tingling and totally fucked up?  I know.  Believe me, I know.  Did the universe (you know I love the universe) conspire to put us here?  So, so silly…but sometimes, you can’t help but think so.  And, for the record, over the many years I often dismissed my feelings for this person as silly and schoolgirlish.  So maybe I need to stop calling my thoughts and feelings “silly” and just be… 

Um…yeah…and…

It’s taken courage to love while suffering heartbreak, fearing that the pain and neurosis and inky mess of the former will eclipse what is good in the latter.  And of course, there are ghosts and patterns and habits and another union’s anger and dusty, old fears…my goodness, that this didn’t end before it started is a miracle.

That my heart feels anything at this point is a bloody miracle, let alone the tidal waves of hopefulness and painful, pulsing love that I’m lucky enough to be prone to. 

One should not hide in fear of what “the people might think” but should instead do just a little bit of roof-top shouting.  Don’t you think?

So.  Sorry there, boyfriend, but you’ll have to be brave too.  You knew I was a writer.  Little bits of you too get sent off into the mind-bending-maybe-it-had-a-hand-in-this universe.     

I’ve gotten off track.  There are so many darn layers.  So much to say.  So much to tip toe around and so much to share.  It takes courage and un-appologizing.  And…

giving myself permission…

to be my overly honest, obnoxiously earnest, heart-swellingly grandiose self. 

And to be happy.

If my marriage had been right, my life story would have gone differently.  I clung to those vows lovingly and stubbornly and faithfully and now, months after extracting myself from their contract legally, I try to do so emotionally.  And move on.  And love!  Bravely and without apology. 

This is the way my life has played out.  And this is me writing about it–overly earnest, obnoxiously honest, grandiose, goofy, schoolgirlish, silly, Super-Targety.

Soap Box Derby (Or Why We Should Accost Moms at Target With What May Be Perceived as Weird and Random Acts of Kindness)

Posted on by Jen

Some of this, surely, has been said before. 

But, listen.

I am a postpartum doula and a mother’s advocate, a birth rights activist and a girl’s girl.  I am intuitive and perceptive and I see, in blindingly detailed technicolor, how distorted the idea of motherhood has become.  I see it all the damn time.  And I could easily go into the cliches–working moms vs. stay at home moms, and the ones who straddle that huge divide and try to do it all.  I could talk about C-section rates and the thanklessness of the world’s most important job, but I want to bring it down to something basic.

The physicality of motherhood. 

Here’s what I want to say.

Sagging breasts–achingly beautiful, because they have done the job they were meant to do. 

Stretch marks–pretty, colorful, pearliest reminders that this gal (or that one) is battle-worn and animal…one of the last true, instinctive (if she’s allowed to be) and lively examples of nature in this modern world.  Although, we have kind of taken the nature out of birth.  But that’s another story.  I’m keeping it simple.  Stretch marks…divine.

C-section scars are something you should treat with caution and reverence, respect for a night not gone as planned, or perhaps planned for months in advance and then recovered from courageously, all the while caring for a small and helpless individual. 

The so called “pooch” that no amount of Pilates can eliminate, that no elected surgery should erase because, my dears, this is like a precious photograph–well loved and faded–kept over the years as a reminder…they lived in there.  They were once a part of your body.  Look at them now and you can hardly believe it’s true. 

The dark circles, the laugh lines.  Rainbows and lightning bolts to me.  The mysteries and glamorous tricks of nature have got nothing on what a mother does and what she feels.  How her mood changes or how her dreams shift or grow or take a back seat through the influence of her family.  Dark circles mean she has stayed up all night–rocking babies, feeding, walking nervously between the steamy shower and the fresh air while carrying a four-year-old with croup, cleaning up vomit stained sheets, or just plain worrying because the teenager has the car out for the first time.  Laugh lines…oh, Mama…how you haven’t lost your sense of humor is beyond me.  How you light up with simultaneous tears and smiles.  How you play. 

And in labor.  I’m going with a “Don’t List” here.  Don’t compare her face to Larry King’s or Sponge Bob’s or…well, anyone’s for that matter.  Don’t be afraid of “the business end.”  Don’t wince when she screams.  Don’t talk about how she pooped when she pushed and if you can’t help yourself, don’t you dare say that it stank.  This is life.  This is womanhood.  It’s not what you see in a magazine or on the twisted, rotten, easy Internet.  Hard and vapid is not hot, because you see, women are mothers, even if they never give birth.  And mothers are, by design, soft.

Again, I’m not saying anything new here.  Or even saying it in a different way.  But I am an advocate and I still see such sickness in our treatment of women–yes–and mothers in particular.  I see sickness in the way I view myself! 

I’m OK with my stretchmarks and my sagging breasts, but I do not like that pooch.  And the dark circles and wrinkles?  Not my faves.

I’ll get over it.  I’ll take my own advice.  I’ll surround myself with people who are better than all that and see that a woman with all these bumps and lumps and marks and shadows is a woman who has lived.  She’s the one who will eat a steak or try your whiskey or birth med-free because she just wants the experience.  One who would do anything for another mother, one who would do anything for a friend, one who has enough sense to move on from certain friendships–once or twice in a lifetime–when they just don’t work right. 

But I also love the mothers who don’t eat meat or drink a drop of anything but coffeecoffeecoffee.  I love the moms who would have–if allowed–named their first born “Epidural McGee” in complete and utter gratitude.  I love them a lot. 

I am that crazy lady at–ha ha–Target, who tells a pregnant woman she’s beautiful and who, recently, in a small Saint Paul boutique, told a woman, “I’m a postpartum doula.  Let me hold your crying baby while you shop.”  The woman looked genuinely touched, but–embarrassed–refused.  Because that’s the world we live in. 

We live in a world where the wrong things are sexy.  We live in a world where new mothers try to be unnecessarily brave and competent.  We live in a world where we don’t comfortably accept kindnesses from strangers or compliments or hugs.  We accept them, but not with the heart-thumping, eyes overflowing thanks and sincerity that we wish we could allow.  We live in a world in which a ridiculous amount of women suffer greatly through postpartum mood disorders, for years after the baby is born.  Folks, it’s way more than you think.  Believe me.  I’m on the front lines.

We live in a world in which natural, gloriously used breasts are considered sloppy.  Stretchmarks are unfortunate.  Pooches need to be nipped and tucked, or at least rolled into all those crazy Spandex undergarments–today’s corsets.  Dark circles and grey hair mean you’re old and ugly and in danger of losing your man.  And, losing your man must mean you’ve lost, right?  Because, we’re still kind of playing Cinderella after all.  But again, that’s another story.  What I’m talking about is youth over wisdom and fake over fabulous and–as I’ve talked about from the beginning–homogeneous over what is uniquely and spectacularly you.  Super Mom over human being.

Seriously.  Yuck.   

Anyway. 

Dare me to say it? 

I’ll say it. 

And mean it. 

I want to change the world.

Sure.  It’s all been said before.  So–damn it–turn off (insert said device) and listen.  And then you say it, to someone, in your own little way.  And then…LOOK.  Because she really is something spectacular.

Red and White

Posted on by Jen

(and black). 

Try to follow this.

Doesn’t the Target aesthetic remind you of a piece of White Stripes paraphernalia?

OK, that’s my meager attempt to tie a little Target into what I really want to talk about:  The White Stripes. 

And really, I don’t need to do any forced tying in, do I?  We all know that this is no longer all about Target…

First off, you should know that I know that it seems a little late in the game to talk about The White Stripes.  They were big and big and bigger a few years ago and officially split as a band earlier this year. 

I’m not a huge fan of this band.  That’s not to say that I don’t like them.  I like them very much, just sporadically and unofficially…if that makes sense. 

Lately, I’ve taken a little more interest.  For personal reasons. 

It started when I was talking with someone about famous people who share my birthday.  The two I could remember off the top of my head were Emily Dickinson (awesome, kismet, writer-girl splendor) and Tito Jackson (huh).

It made me wonder if anyone notable shared my actual birthday, down to the year.  Before I go on, let me say that my actual birthday is a big deal to me.  I really get off on it.  It’s all even numbers and it’s in December and folks seem to think that those born in December live a life of struggle, always competing with the fa la la la la and the Auld Lang Syne and the lusty lure of mistletoe. 

Well.  I’ve always liked that my birthday is right smack dab in the middle of the “most wonderful time of the year.” 

On my birthday, I always make sure to look at a newspaper or even just the MSN home page, because I like to see the date.  It links up to some sort of sense of self in me.  That’s my birthdate.  Today is my day. 

So, back before it collapsed and fizzled out and became just the Jen show, I used to oversee a multi-writer nostalgia blog called Memoirs Are So Yesterday.  In the end, I ripped it down and erased the address.  There was a lot of good writing there, but the idea of it sitting out there, unfinished and dying, was uncomfortable for me.  So it went.  To the trash.  Like my journals.  Like a whole bunch of stuff from that big house in the suburbs.  I’m thinking now…how can I learn to slough off suffering and worry and doubt with the same confidence I possess when I crinkle up pieces of paper or press the “yes, really delete” button?  That would be nice…and I suppose the answer to the meaning of life and starvation and war and all that. 

Anyway, if you were a fan of the memoir blog, which at least one or two of you were, you may remember a story about a crush I had, back in my twenties, on the rental car boy at the Trenton-Mercer airport.  I traveled to New Jersey a lot at the time.  Anyway.  To make a long story short, we played eye contact games for months before finally speaking; and when we spoke, we learned that we have the same birthdate.  Down to the year.  I stared at his driver’s license and felt like I’d found a treasure.  There were my numbers!  My date! 

We would never see eachother again, which was fine, but we would–for the first few years anyway–send a little happy birthday email.  Sometimes I still think of him on my birthday.  He’s the only one I’ve  met with exactly the same. 

See, my birthday is a thing for me. 

I should get around to more of a point, but I also want to mention this ridiculous book called Love Signs by Linda Goodman.  It’s this big, thick astrology and romantic match-up manifesto.  During my first year in college, my friend Anna and I studied it religiously, in an effort to figure out if our crushes were destined to be more, if that childhood sweetheart would turn out to be “the one,”  if the frat boys we went on dates with were only jerks because of the prewritten ways of the stars.  I believe it even mapped it down to exact birthday, but I can’t be sure.  I do know that Ms. Goodman used quotes from J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan (the actual book) to describe each sign and union and situation.  And I love Peter Pan.  Naturally. 

Anna and I, still friends, have been remembering Love Signs here and there lately, still trying to make sense of so-called Mars dating the hot tomato Venus.  Even though this book promised, without a shadow of doubt, that my most perfect match in the whole wide world would be…my ex-husband’s sign, I still hear her (clearly misguided) worlds in the back of my mind.  I fret over the science of astrology in terms of relationships.  Fret is a strong word, actually.  It’s something more like this:  I try to shoo Linda Goodman and her chosen conversations between Peter and Wendy, but like a sometimes sleeping fly on a dark summer night, a slight reverance for when we were born in terms of how we love lurks around, waiting to emit the occasional all-knowing buzz.

Like I said, my birthday…kind of a thing. 

So, Meg White has my exact birthday.  I found out while seeking a little more than Emily (so cool) and Tito, who I actually just Googled and as it turns out…he totally does not have my birthday, so before we go any further, we might want to examine why I’m fantasizing about sharing a birthday with him.  That’s disturbing, don’t you think?  Well, here’s the answer I’ve come up with:  Tito Jackson does share a birthday with my oldest friend, Moll.  At some point, early in life, we must’ve come across a list.  And Tito stuck with me, as if my own. 

I also have Kenneth Branagh.  Not bad. 

And so Meg, the mysterious lady drummer, has my date down to the year.  When I found out, I immediately added her to my imaginary all girl crime fighting crew which also includes Kim Deal, a 40-something usher with a bad perm named Julie (she works at Target Field), and a scatterbrained waitress from Masu. 

What?  You don’t have an imaginary all girl crime fighting crew?  Just what are you waiting for? 

Initially, I spent about 5 minutes looking at a few pictures of Meg, thinking, “Huh.”  Then I moved on.

Until…I ran into a documentary on cable called “The White Stripes Under Great Northern Lights.”  I taped it, which I might not have done if I hadn’t just found out that Meg White is exactly my age.

The music was, of course, good enough to fold laundry to and I had a nice little time–watching Meg for signs of me.  This was, again, the faint buzzing influence of Linda Goodman, who would tell you that “those born on this day are like this.”  So, as we do while exploring astrology, reading the descriptions of our traits, my mind picked out things about Meg that were familiar to me.  Her looks–similar anyway.  Her shyness.  Awkwardness.  Secret strength.  Then there were a billion things that weren’t me, which I ignored, because as in astrology, we brush over all that other stuff in our quest for meaning and connection.  Basic science.  Right? 

So, my Meg study quickly became eclipsed by a fascination with them, Meg and Jack, as a duo.  Again, I know…it’s a little late to be talking about this and I’m not going to go into too much speculation or say things that have probably already been said.  I had read before and have since confirmed with highly reliable internet research that they were married, but initially claimed they were siblings so that relationship speculation would not overshadow the music.  But then, it sort of seemed to backfire, because then they just seemed creepy, if not self-important. 

Knowing that they were married and then divorced kind of made me watch this movie with a sort of grainy, somewhat confused filter.  How did they do this?  That is…exist as a highly successful rock duo.  And then it irritated me–Jack’s suggestion to focus on the music, just the music.  Because all music–and clearly theirs–is shaped on experience and passion and of course, love–both blooming and lost.  And if it’s there, it’s there…all a part of the show.

And I have to call it.  Between these two there is sadness and annoyance and also sexual tension–and sure, a feeling of sisterhood.  I knew in an instant that their marriage had been more…I don’t know…something…than my own.  I also can see that at the time of this Canadian tour, they were not quite emotionally divorced.  Or maybe they were.  What do I know?  I suppose if you form a rock band and win Grammys and call yourself–and even sort of believe yourself to be–someone’s sibling, you probably do have an exhaulted marriage of a different sort, even after you are no longer legally bound by traditional matrimony. 

There’s a scene at the end of the film in which Jack plays a song on the piano and Meg just silently cries (sitting next to him on the bench).  And then he looks at her and kind of brings her into a “come here kiddo” kind of hug.  And then I think she grabs for another one. 

I honestly don’t know what to say about this.  I felt a writer’s hunger while watching it.  Look there at the complexity of life.  Look there at raw and private emotion.  But then I also felt a lot of …what the fuck? 

In preparation to barf out these not-so-original and semi-irrelevant thoughts about The White Stripes and–you know–astrology, I did a little more scientific search engine study and read a few more tidbits about these two characters, one of whom is of course my cosmic twin by birth, separated only by the distance between Bellflower, California and Detroit.  So here are some of the nuggets I found: 

-Meg was the maid of honor at Jack’s wedding.  And to be honest, that’s so December 10, 1974 of her.  So is crying quietly on a piano bench, by the way. 

-When Meg and Jack married, he took her name.  This is common knowledge, but it’s not the norm so it goes on the list.

-Meg was married in Jack’s backyard in a double ceremony (very 70s sitcom).  She married Patti Smith’s son and then a guy from Jack’s other band married some girl.  Two weddings…back to back or at same time?  I don’t know the specifics.  Whatever.  One big happy family.

-Jack and his next wife, who he made babies with, had a divorce party (apparently it’s a new thing…I won’t be having one, but perhaps I should do some more hard-hitting research and write about it).  Guests were invited to celebrate the beginning and end of this wonderful union…

It all makes my head hurt.  I believe this is what my therapist calls, “…so California,” which is his way of describing this need to be happy and sunny and friendly and incestuous, with couples toppling over on each other and going out for drinks and trading stories until a man can expect his two ex-girlfriends to go shopping, pausing now and then to roll their eyes over his tendency to leave the bathroom towel on the floor and the unbearable farts he produces after a night of beer and hot wings with the guys. 

When I look at the list, I have an  initial, shoulder tensing what-the-flying-flapping-fuck reaction.  It’s all so annoyingly cool and trying-to-be-different-for-the-sake-of-being-different-we’ll-be-recording-our-next-album-from-inside-the-pried-open-jaws-of-a-really-big-alligator.

But you know me.  Instead of WTF, I give them the benefit of the doubt and settle on:  ”What the fuck do I know?” 

And then there’s a part of me that finds it all very interesting, as I continue to sort out what love and marriage mean to me now.  And I’m not saying that the Whites are the healthy model or normal.  I’m not saying they have it right.  But something about it sparks me.  It’s hard to look away.

And least it’s something different.

The New Rules Of Target

Posted on by Jen

1.   Do not go to Target “for fun.”  It is true that Target has the power to momentarily erase trouble and doubt with a sort of damp, less-than sticky Band Aid and a prickly, temporarily effective numbing device (think:  too cold baggy of ice).  And, it is true that Target has, and continues to provide diversion and familiarity, and what you have often called “the checking off of a sort of to do list while ignoring what you really need to do.”  Still.  Is it fun?  Really fun?  No.  And furthermore, if you spend money on things you don’t need, mindlessly, routinely, at Target, you will not have time (or money) for real fun, experience, and connection.  Trade in that brightly colored table lamp for a glass of wine with the girls.  Throw pillow + turtleneck sweater + package of new formula Sharpie pens = a day at the fair with the kids.

2.  Reward yourself with real happy and experience every time–ha ha, good luck–you walk in with an exact purchase mission and walk out with just those things.  If your list reads trash bags, spatula, peanut butter…rise to the damn challenge.  Celebrate rigidity (in this situation only) and sticking to the plan.  Buy yourself a cupcake with the money saved–or save, save, save for a rainy day, when for certain, something better will come up. 

3.  If you don’t stick to the list, if you never manage to succeed in the “no excess” challenge, do not beat yourself up.  You are human and you are trying. 

4.  When pushing the red cart, just say “no” more than “yes.”  When out in life, pushing forward and seeking happiness, go ahead and say “yes” as much as you’re able.

5.  Do not take your children to Target.

6.  Now, since you will undoubtedly ignore rule #5, let’s talk it through–perhaps look at the facts and establish some guidelines…

      A. One child at Target can be quite pleasant and you should feel free to attempt this, if you have the time and the proper frame of mind.

      B.  Remember to evaluate the mood of the child before Target trip and plan accordingly.

      C.   Keep in mind that they will want the things that they see, just like you do.  This is one of the reasons you started this project, many moons ago–to save your children from the spoiled rotten gimme-gimme-gimme of this crazy world.  Know that they can’t sort through wants and needs and the complex relationship between the two.  If this is a challenge for you and nearly every other American adult, remember that the thoughts and questions you raise about Target and material things and splurges and urges are not even on a child’s radar.  That said, it’s OK to say no.  It’s OK to piss them off and let them cry, heartbroken, because they can’t have that toy on this day.  That’s life, Sweetheart.  Someday, they will thank you for saying no.  You have said it before (so go ahead and say it again):  you can’t have YES, truly, without having NO. 

      D.  If you choose to further thumb your nose at rule #5, and bring into the glistening aisles of the modern day Treasure Island, not one child but two, you had better be–on that day–a great many things:  awake, prepared, quick, firm, happy, and patient.  Take a deep breath before entry.  Make it a quick trip.  Don’t bite off more than you can chew.  Don’t crumble into tears when the little one tries to chew through donut packages, marshmallow packages, or a bag of cat litter.  Have a sense of humor and a deep well of strength.  You knew what you were getting yourself into.  Think ahead.

7.  Do not find yourself in the Target check-out line between the hours of 4:30 pm and 6 pm on weekdays.  This is self-explanatory and non-negotiable. 

8.  Try to avoid big trips on the weekends.  There isn’t much that can’t wait until Monday, however, weekends are better than the black-out time period listed in rule #7.   

9.  Buy most gifts somewhere else.  There is nothing wrong with a Target gift, but it is such a standard (with telltale receipt neatly taped to the back) that your best chance of actually surprising and delighting (the whole point) is to think outside the Big Box. 

10. It’s OK that you kind of love Target.  It’s who you are and you are off the hook–awesomely, uniquely wise and sparkly and true.  If embracing your oft examined, shifting, changing Target “thing” brings about a little more self-love and acceptance, by all means, embrace, embrace, embrace…love your damn self…for exactly who you are and for who you will be. 

 

The Jen and The Pen

Posted on by Jen

Every person is made up of threads and throughlines–some long and wooly and constant, some just a scrap or a nub.  There may be a stretchy metalic pink string–the everlasting love of dance.  The scrap of dark green lace ribbon–that bisexual experimentation phase in college.  The mustard yellow twine that twists and turns through the texture of the tapestry–some sort of hard earned, hard learned addiction.  A fuzzy, fluffy line of white yarn–the need for a place with seasons.  Who knows.  These are not my personal threads and throughlines, but here’s what I’ve got:

1. A thick and ancient piece of red velvet, representing the fact that I am annoyingly and hopelessly romantic.  It gets me into a bit of trouble.

2. A thin but sturdy line of midnight blue–the thing that makes me describe life in “threads and throughlines.”  My history of writing.  My pencil, my pen, my typewriter, my laptop.  It has always been there.  Always.

At age three, I told a highly detailed horror story about an evil lamp who came to life.  So vivid was my imagination and my committment to the plot, I scared myself temporarily sleepless.  My mother had to remove the lamp in question–”Lampwick” was his name–from our home.  Stephen King, Anne Rice, Edgar Allan Poe, Alfred Hitchcock…were any of you the nightmared victims of your own creations? 

At eight, I wrote a series of books about a couple of dogs who walked around like people on hind legs.  They wore clothes.  They traveled around to fun and fantastic places–New York, Las Vegas, Palm Springs.  Rory and Smithsy were their names–Rory was a sort of cranky tom-boy of a beagle, Smithsy was a frothy, flighty, poodle.  A second grader’s take on the odd couple. 

Around the same time as I came out with Rory and Smithsy, I revisited the wild success of the Lampwick tale with another dark story…How to Fry a Frisky Fish, the last line of which is still tossed around at family dinner parties.  (“If all else fails, you can always use a blow torch.”)

The Age 8 writings, as we’ll call them, filled my parents with unparalleled pride.  They showed the books to everyone.  They even–I kid not–thought about finding a publisher.  They truly believed that my quirky books-for-kids-by-a-kid were marketable.  At eight, I experienced my first daydreams of literary grandeur.  I would be a young writer–wildly successful, future set in stone. 

My father still wants me to write for children.  “Remember Rory and Smithsy?” he asks.  How could I forget?  You won’t let me!

In third grade, I had a traditional, rather strict teacher.  Ready for retirement, a bit short-tempered…you might even say a bit mean.  Still, she favored the art of expression and developed a lengthy three week intensive on writing…a booklet that would be titled “Colorful, Creative Sentences.”  Same title for every student.  Creative, alright.  Anyway.  It was our introduction to the use of adjectives.  The books were illustrated.  Rainbow paper.  It was kind of a big deal and the best time I’d ever had at school.  Mrs. Deckard–I will never forget her name–loved my sentences.  She sent letters home to my folks, she put my end result on display.  On the last day of school, she slipped me a note that read, “When you publish your first book, please send me an autographed copy.”  Again with the book publishing.  Again with the certainty about me…and writing.  Off path a bit, I want to tip my hat to teachers who make bold statements to third graders, who fill a child with hope and belief and confidence, who nudge a small child down the path that they may have already chosen.  Or may never have had the nerve to consider seriously…

At age ten, I started journaling religiously.  Nothing felt better than writing and writing and writing.  Getting it all out.  Questioning life.  Feeling elevated and profound.  Reaching the end of a page, flipping it over, continuing through tired eyes and a cramped right hand.  I would continue to keep a diary until the age of 26.  And then I would throw them all away.  Just like that.  You can read about that here:  http://skirt.com/essays/secret-life-my-secrets.  A published writing about the disposal of my writing.  How–together now–poetic. 

And speaking of poems, I wrote many, many bad ones through the years.  Man, there’s nothing like a bad poem, heavy with hearts and flowers and forced alliteration; perhaps a not-so-secret dedication, an attempt at subtlety that accidentally turns into a shout-out-loud.  Sigh.  To be a poet.

Ages 9-14 I went to this crazy Los Angeles summer camp called Camp Hollywoodland.  There are a million things I could tell you about this place, but in the interest of sticking to the point, I want to tell you about my friend Lisa, from Canoga Park.  We became pen pals and wrote novella-sized letters.  If you put them together, you would have the small, sheltered, secret-sharing stories of two adolescents–Growing Up Orange County and Growing Up Valley Girl.  We wrote about music and movies and school, but mostly, we wrote about boys.

And speaking of boys, I wrote letters to them too.  In 1990, I accompanied my parents to the North American Bridge Championship in Boston, where I worked as a caddy.  On the first night of the tournament, I met two boys.  One became an instant best friend.  And the other, a first love at first sight and then, through the years, a somewhat epic character–a friend like family, while still always the soul who’d (somewhat accidentally) first broken my heart.  Both of these boys, now men, still have their old Jen letters and would, I know, still thrill at getting a letter from me.  Because they care about me, sure.  Because I’m awesome and unforgettable…obviously.  But also because they love my writing.  At least one of them has told me that a book by me would be the best thing in the world to read (again with the book).  And one of them thinks I can do anything…yeah, sure…even write a book if I wanted to.  

I started seeing a therapist on and off when I was about 19.  What I want to say about that, for now, is…that’s life.  Frankly, I think every single person in this wacky world should go, not because they’re crazy or sick, but because life takes practice and because we are simply animals living in a rapidly evolving and often disconnected world.  Anyway.  I remember that one of the first questions my therapist asked me was, “What do you really like doing?”  I answered, “I like to write.”  He asked me what I liked about it, and I told him that I liked the physical act of it–whether typing or scrawling out words with the perfect pen.  Filling a page, emptying my brain, putting a thousand thoughts somewhere semi-permanent, even if they would sit in a drawer or end up in the garbage.

But then, eventually, as artists often do, I developed a love/hate relationship with “what I like to do.”

After trying just about every liberal arts major at Boston University, I transferred to the Emerson writing program.  It was a dream to go to school for writing, to shape natural talent, to put focus to the need to write.  I had never been an excellent student.  Learning in rows and under the rule of an iron syllabus was never my thing.  I learned well when interested, when respected, when creatively approached and taught with a touch of spontaneity. 

At Emerson, I was an excellent student.  My peers loved my work.  I was, somewhat effortlessly, a prolific perfectionist.  I brought fresh material–lots of it–to my teachers, in nearly final draft form.  I was a teacher’s pet and an overachiever, was published in all the campus literary magazines and received what those in the know called “promising rejection letters.”  For those not so much in the know, that means that a jaded editor asks you to send more stuff or tells you that your story is not right for right now, but close.  Sometimes they just encourage you–even in the face of their sadly squelched optimism–to keep writing.  I received a lengthy one from the senior editor of  The Atlantic.  As a senior in college.  It was kind of a big deal, but…

Now who was becoming jaded?  If you know me, you know that I have a bottomless well of strength, but that I am also–sigh–sensitive…dare I say fragile?  Hmm.  Fragile, no.  Easily bruised?  A little dare-devil with an unfortunate tendency to bleed a lot upon stumble?  Something like that. 

Could I really join a world where one would be expected to jump with joy over rejection?  One of my professors held that letter from The Atlantic, hands shaking, breath catching.  “Do you realize,” she whispered, “that there are fifty year olds who would kill for this letter?  This would be something big for even a graduate student, let alone undergraduate.”

It was something.  I was into it.  But it was still a no.  And stupidly, I didn’t quickly send in more work.  Maybe because I knew that this was a world where–no matter the level of talent or work ethic–there would be many, many more closed doors than open ones.  Maybe every door would be closed, despite a whole life history of friends and neighbors and strangers and teachers telling a girl, “When you write that book…”

I went on to graduate school at Emerson, and the work of writing killed some of the excitement.  I worked for a literary magazine and became one of those snotty, distracted, jaded readers.  I suddenly despised the small, elitist world of wordsmiths–the same world that only three years before invigorated me. 

So, I ran off to Italy and married a sailor.  We now know how that story ends, but what you may not know is that upon moving to Italy, I officially, and somewhat dramatically gave up writing.  I honestly believed that I would never write again.  I told myself that I wanted to live my life rather than simply write about life.  On some level, this was healthy, but perhaps a little too black and white.  I suppose it was (unfinished) MFA burn-out.  Fear.  New adventure.  Hope for love.  And then, motherhood. 

Writing came back to me, one afternoon, in that gargantuan suburban house.  I had an office.  I had space.  I had files, old hard copies of pretty words and metaphors, distorted fairy tales and attempts at “strong fiction.” 

Writing came back–literally–as an upset stomach.  It goes back to the old quote, twisted and tweaked (writers do love to copy) a hundred times over.  Google it, and you’ll find it attributed, in one way or another, to about a dozen different writers.  Most often, it is listed as Ms. Dorothy Parker, so she gets–as my friend Tory would say–the cookie.  “I hate writing.  I love having written.”

Oh, yes.  We do pace around the keyboard and get distracted.  We do scratch around for inspiration and then ignore it later when there’s something better to do.  We wish we could do it more.  We want to be famous.  But we want to be good.  We’re never good enough, even once our work is in print.  Published, we’ll still find the flaw, still find the rewrite.  It is lonely, tedious, self-scraping work, but even the smallest finished project–a fresh and jabbing sentence–is exhilarating.

But most writers write, quite simply, because they can’t not.  Writing is a gift and an affliction and a way of breathing.  Another form of therapy in this mad, mad world.  Try to stop writing–as I did, for five whole years–and the need to do so will rise to the surface like an ignored illness, a buried treasure, hunger after a fast. 

This resurrection of the need to write, after taking time off to throw myself solely into the work of marriage and motherhood, was met with a tickle in my chest and some giddy anticipation.  And also a little, “Shit.  Not this again.  Alright then.  Let’s have at it.”

I have started and stopped blogs.  I am, occasionally, paid pretty well for my nonfiction.  I have a few fans who I’ve never met in person.  I have ideas for books, but very little time for the big pile of work that would actually make a book happen.

I still hear what I’ve heard my whole life.  That there’s a best seller in me.  That I’m good.  That I move and touch and get inside.  That my words are digested slowly, savored, enjoyed. 

I’m just in that hard phase of a writer’s “career.”  Because I haven’t exactly hit it big, I am swimming in uncertainty.  I just don’t have the time for this.  But then, I need it.  I can’t not… 

I don’t know if the world will really take me on, as a Writer (capital W).  But I really, really want it to.  Writers hate to admit that.  We secretly want to be well-received, no matter how much we question big success stories such as Twilight, Harry Potter, Eat Pray Love, The DaVinci Code. 

In part, we want the words to reach you.  But also, we just want the permission to write.  Seriously.  When I dream of a best seller, I don’t fantasize about mansions and yachts and book signings, or even financial freedom after divorce.  I just want to live my life, basically the way I am living it, but with writing as my official job.  Or one of my official jobs.  Or something of a paid hobby.  That’s the dream. 

But then…I’d have to do an awful lot of writing.  And it’s lonely and tedious and gut-scraping and…

This is my moment of acceptance.  I am a writer.  I have always been a writer.  This is my midnight blue throughline.  I may never be famous.  I may never see another word in print.  I may never see another earned-with-words dollar.

But I can’t not do it.  And…

Right here, at Year Without, I do it freely.  For free, but freely.  No banging on locked doors, no expectation.  I get some love, I get some feedback.  It’s forceful, delicious, self-regulated instant grat. 

In this next year, inevitably without certain things, I will stick with this site.  (Long post, little announcement.)

I’d also like to throw in some other withs as well.  I haven’t put myself out there much as writer.  For what little I have put out, I’ve honestly been lucky and encouraged and yeah, I’ll say it…successful.  But fear–of both flying and falling–stops me from the big push.  And really, if I want the world to take me on, I have to take on the world.

So let’s see if, in this history of Jen and the pen, I can put myself out there more.  The “withs” in my next Year Without will–damn it–include writing with huge and unbashful asperations, with honesty (always), with confidence, with patience, with at least an occasional dabble in this site, because…

I still have a few more things to say here.  And lucky, lucky me…I have someone–a few someones–listening, riding along, reading along. 

Let’s go.