sarahntastic

“Customer assistance on the family planning aisle!!!” screeched the girl into the intercom when I told her I needed something from the locked-up, adult stuff case.  Only a select few, special, prone to thievery of condoms, preggo tests, and yeast medication CVS locations lock this shit down tight.  So those of us who are already wanting to die of embarrassment AND itching have to ask a 19 year old girl to open the case for us.

Now, let me just say that I am far more judgmental of yeast infections that you might be.  I know who and what has been down there, and I know it’s been nothing, or anyone, dirty.  Well, it’s been dirty, but you know, not dirty.  But the fact that no matter what I do, latex, and a man’s parts make my hoohah go ballistic.  Baking bread.  Making muffins.  You know.  A motherfucking yeast infection.  But this rational explanation doesn’t help when I have to buy medicine for a dirty cooter, you know?

I really wanted to ask for jumbo box of jumbo condoms when she opened the case.  At least this way 19 year old simply thinks I’m getting the sexing.  Now she just thinks I’m getting the sexing from random dirty dude.  Right?  Because that’s what I think when I see you buy monistat.

I didn’t want to get married the first or the second time I did so.  The first time I was trying to out-reverse psychology my parents.  I ended up married.  Sobbing and hyperventilating down the aisle, yet still ended up married at 19.  The second time was for pragmatic reasons that ultimately were for naught, yet there I was, married again.

Neither time did I think I was following through on a life-long desire to partner up with someone.  In fact, both times I knew very well the decisions would likely lead me to disaster of some sort.  I’m the person who desired love and commitment more than anyone I knew, even at a young age, but never, ever did I think that meant marriage.

I believe in long-term relationships.  I believe in fidelity and commitment and partnership and team work and building a family and sharing lives.  More than a lot of people I know, certainly.

I think it is unnatural for humans to spend long periods of our lives alone.

I think we are at our best when we live with and alongside someone we care for deeply, support faithfully, trust absolutely.  He is the person you are willing to get dressed in front of unabashedly.  He is the person you know you can puke in front of and in return he can do the same.  And then you are willing to clean up the sick and the poop and the snotty kleenex.  We know what the other wants to say, even when we can’t spit it out.  We know favorites:  food, perfume, magazines, literature, films, television.  Because this is how you are for someone you love.

And you might argue.  You might even fight hard and mean and tough once in a while.  But those times are rare.  Because you know that you cannot make it if this is how you are most of the time.  Because it is how things were before, and it never worked.  Because none of the others were the one.

None of this means I care to be married.  Certainly there are pragmatic reasons that might change my mind like getting health insurance and making end-of-life decisions.  But there are other ways to manage these things.

I believe in forever more, happily ever after, not wanting something good to end, ever.  But all of this does not mean marriage to me.  And frankly, I think I’ve used up my marriage tries.  I gladly give up any more to those who legally cannot marry but want to.

How much would I have to love you for you to stop hating yourself?

For you to believe you are worth loving?

For you to love me back?

How much would I have to love you for you to believe that I love you?

Her father was a raging alcoholic.  He beat them all for his own personal recreation.  Her mother, her brother, her.  He threw her against the brick fireplace and broke her clavicle when she was a small child.  He berated them all; he viciously beat them all.  And yet somehow she was his favorite.  She stared him in the eye while he beat the shit out of her.  He had a respect for her that he didn’t have for her mother and brother.  Because of this, her mother resented her and abused her emotionally her entire life.  She would spend most of her adult life chasing her mother’s love.

In 1968, she was 17, angry, and hurt because her father forced her home from college simply because she was dating a Jewish guy.  Otherwise she wouldn’t have been home that day when he returned from after-work drinking, enraged by Black Panthers and hippies and socialists.  He beat her while she sat in a kitchen chair, staring at him.  When he was finally done, she left, with nothing.  She got in her car and drove 200 miles west to a family friend.  She had the phone number of a former college acquaintance from California.  She called.  He drove 1,500 miles to get her.  She left with him and just a few clothes she had sewn for herself, waiting for this kid to come get her.  She wouldn’t return to her home state for many years.

He was angry and hurt, too.  He left college because the money ran out.  He had a large, close family, but he was the youngest and left behind a lot.  In 1968 he was 18.  He drove 1,500 miles to rescue someone he barely knew.  He brought her to California, and she was immediately embraced by his family.  His mother loved her as her own from the start.  His mother said, whenever anyone asked how she could take in a stranger, “she was a child. I never understood how her own parents could throw away their child.  Now she is my daughter.”

After a year living and working together, she asked him if they were going to get married.  They did.

Then they had three kids.  And lots of pets.  And a house with a pool.  And vacations.  And their kids grew up.

And they stayed married.  Continue to stay married.

After he saved her and she saved him.

you can’t have just the best parts of me

you can have my kindness and my generosity and my I-will-always-make-you-feel-special

but you must have my wounds and my mistakes and my temper

you can have my trust and my adoration and my I-will-always-make-you-laugh

but you must have my tantrums and my over-thinking and my jumping to conclusions

you can have my love

and you must have the rest of me

or you can’t have any of me

Many years ago I had a friend who challenged me to my core.  Often in manipulative, unrealistic, and simply insane ways thinking back on it all, but at the time, I thought she was wise and smart.  Her AA, OA, NA and whatever else Anonymous theories I met mostly with a “get over yourself” attitude, but I certainly was not, am not, perfect.  So I listened.  I learned what I could.

She was considerably older than me.  I was 24 when we first met and she was near 40.  She had had a life, a child, a couple divorces, many boyfriends, many dates, many a fall-out with her family, and of course the addiction battles.  I was divorced but still very naive.  I hadn’t yet had my first cocktail, never smoked, never did drugs, and never really dated, having married my second serious boyfriend when I was 19.

Mostly I thought she was a mature, confident woman who did whatever she wanted, and I wanted to be like her.  She talked about sex like no one I’d ever known.  She told men off for being bad in bed.  She was honest with men and required them to be honest with her.  She was confident at work.  Confident with women.  And I was fun, single, and pretty much willing to let her take me on as her project for awhile.  We were perfect for each other at that particular time in our lives.

After a couple years, though, I wasn’t cutting it with her.  I never did meet her expectations.  After all, I was still me.  Certainly I learned a bit more about men and relationships and making a place for myself at work.  I learned I was lucky to have a supportive family, something she did not have.

But it all ended when she challenged me in an honest and forthright way during a time I was particularly depressed and lost.

She wanted me to commit to a trip, a seminar, a plan for my life–many things at once that I had been putting off.  We argued, I cried, she was frustrated with me, I was frustrated with me.  I wouldn’t commit to anything.  I remember, vividly, the final phone call.  I said over and over again that I was confused and unsure of what to do with myself.  Finally she said, “Sarah, confusion is a delusion your brain allows you so you don’t have to make choices.  It’s an excuse.  You aren’t confused, you are scared and so you choose nothing.  But you are not confused.”

And there it was.  Straight truth.

I know what I want.  I know who I love and care for.  I know who is good for me and who isn’t.  I know that I put myself in situations that allow for the delusion of confusion to be cultivated so that I have an excuse not to be myself, not to do anything, not to commit, not to move forward, not to find a man who wants to be with me fully and completely.

I am not confused.  And neither are you.

1969

1991

When she married my dad in 1969, she was 19.

When I married in 1991, I was 19.

I thank all that is good and right in the world that the best of these marriages is still in tact, successful, fun, silly, weird, crazy, and loving.

This morning when I finally had a good cry – - the kind where I’m in a ball on the floor getting it all out, my mind hurriedly running through my list of people I might call, a decidedly short list to be sure, and realizing there is not a single person in my life I can trust with my shit or want to burden with my shit – - I realized I am just like her.

She might be out-of-this-world wacky.  Over a gender-confused man who wants nothing to do with her except when it serves his ego.  And she might be a compulsive liar.  And she might take a handful of Xanax every night.  And she might teeter between reality and her not-so-carefully crafted delusions.

But I’m just like her.

I want what she wants.  Love.  Acceptance.  Someone to tell me I matter in this world.  Someone to remind me of my value so that I steer myself from this detour of mediocrity, depression, and sadness I’ve been on for far too long.

Too bad she’s not just like me—keeping my motherfucking crazy to a few paragraphs on the interwebs where no one can find me.

_____________________

p.s.  so I wrote this earlier today only to learn her lies have reached epic proportions tonight.  I will just say this:  mental illness is not a joke.  No matter how ridiculous and sad this chick is, I have endless empathy for her, because she is so ridiculous and sad.  And because I am just like her, minus the delusions.

p.p.s. and my endless empathy will not serve to deter me from talking about her crazy, just in case you were wondering if I had some sort of epiphany.  I didn’t.

I was married to a wealthy man from a wealthy family.  I don’t say this to brag my way out of your heart.  Obviously you know me well enough to know I wouldn’t do such a thing.  But just to lay this out:  I had an engagement ring and jewelry I was embarrassed to own, and never wore, mostly because its value was the same as a home in Silicon Valley; extravagant trips; extravagant gifts; gorgeous cars; successful investments; and so on.

But none of it meant anything to me.  Because I wanted a rich marriage, not a rich husband.  My former mother-in-law actually brought thousands of dollars worth of jewelry to me the day she arrived to take her son home to marry another woman.  My parting gifts, apparently.  I used it as an opportunity to finally tell her no.  She thought I was foolish to turn down the payoff.

As many nice things I’ve owned, seen, done, nothing matters if, well, if it doesn’t matter.

So the other day a friend said a particular car is sexy, and my reply was “I don’t think cars are sexy, I think paying rent is sexy.”  And by that I mean, taking care of your family in the simplest way is sexy.  Cars? eh. I’ve had them.  But trust, reliability, hysterical funnies, generosity of one’s heart?  Much, much sexier than a car.

*  “did you just say ‘paying rent’ is sexy?” quoted from this funny guy.

I don’t miss him.  He did, after all, leave me. For another woman.  And marry her before we were divorced.  And had a kid with her.  After he (we) had been so distraught about my miscarriage the year before.  And ruined my credit.  And left me with no savings or retirement.  And left me to rot on the couch in paralyzing depression.  And after all that I still allowed him to be my best friend as he had been for 10 years.  And it was OK.  Because we had that history.  And it served a purpose for me, too.  Until he stole a lot of money from me last year and cut off all communication from me.

So no, I don’t miss this specific person.

But I miss the familiarity.  The best-friendship.  The jokes that only we thought were funny.  Because dude and I were super funny together (we all already know how funny I am, yo.  He was, too).  I find myself still, now, even last night, nearly saying something out loud something only he would know was hysterical.

Funny men, let’s do this.  Because I need some new funny.