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.

High school mostly sucked for me.  I was smart and sarcastic and too mature to relate to most of my peers.  I had a mom everyone knew as The One to Ask What Such-and-Such Means (dirty words, mostly), and a penchant for loving books more than anything else.  I had a really cool car thanks to having a really cool dad.  Everyone thought that 1966 Mustang  was amazing, but really I cared mostly about getting to school and work and One Step Beyond (see underage club, circa 1988, 1989 for definition) in it.  I liked having money; I liked reading in my room; and I liked a few close friends.  Mostly I wanted to grow up and get the fuck out of high school.

So then there was facebook.  I had no idea so many people were nosy, adding me just to see my pics, because really? Why else are you friending me, peeps I haven’t seen or heard from in nearly 20 years?  I mean, we didn’t jive back in 1987, we ain’t gonna jive now, knowhatI’msayin?  But it was sort of neat to see a few people grown up.  Via facebook, of course.  Even the locals.  There would be no actual meeting.  Why would we meet now when we couldn’t bear each other during high school?

Then the 20th reunion came along.  I didn’t want to go.  An old friend persuaded me to go.  I got drunk really early in the night.  Because I couldn’t bear the whole thing.  I don’t know why.  Most people were fascinated that I wasn’t married, didn’t have children.  I was some anomaly to be interviewed.  Unfortunately I was so far gone on vodka I had to tell myself to stay quiet to avoid embarrassing myself.  One dude grabbed my ass many times.  Women wanted to know what life was like without kids.  I wanted to get the fuck outta there.  Just like 20 years ago.

It was nice to see  a few people.  But after all is said and done, I could have done without.  20 years is really no time at all.  Everyone still looked like their 15 year old selves.

Adults with a weird history of weird awkwardness to the weirdth degree really need to meet again after 20 years?

I’m thinking no.

Me:  I can’t wait til Thursday!

BFF:  Really? you’re that excited about getting your IUD?

Me:  Say wha? I’m talking about you & I going out Thursday night.

BFF:  Oh.  I thought you were super excited like maybe you’re just gonna start fucking and fucking.

Me:  Um.

BFF:  Maybe that’s just what I would do.

After seeing her for a few months years ago, I was well enough to start thinking about re-starting my life, this tiny, long-haired, nose-pierced, bright green toenail polished, Stanford educated M.D., Indian woman said, “Don’t complain about not having a boyfriend when you leave the house looking like THAT.”

Next she lectured on the “fact” that fat women make compromises in their mates, because they can’t snag a good looking man who also happens to be a good man.  She knows so, she said, because she sees it amongst her friends.  Perfectly smart, able, ambitious women–fat women–pairing up with men who, in every way, are inferior, but hey, that’s what fat gets you.  So can I please get over myself and do something about my weight?

I always wondered which Stanford class, exactly, she learned to be so bitchy forthright.  I liked it, though.  No bullshit.  I couldn’t pull my sob story for long with her.  She succeeded in properly medicating me so I was much better than when I dragged in months earlier having been in a fetal position on my couch for six months prior to that.

So when I needed to see her again, because the dark abyss of depression had crept up on me this year, after a few years of sanity and clear-headedness, I was running late.  I put on jeans, rather than yoga pants, knowing she would cringe.  But I didn’t put on makeup.  I didn’t dry my hair.  I really couldn’t.  Didn’t have the energy, physical or mental, to do much more.  But I knew she would have something to say about it.

I explained my descent back into near-severe depression the last six months, and my frustration and anger with myself that I just cannot make myself do anything.  She did her doctor thing.  She told me she would adjust meds.  She told me that I am depressed, duh, so no amount of self-pep talk is going to work until I’m moving out of the dark parts.  She suggested I try to do small things, allow myself accomplishments on a much smaller scale.

Call a friend back.

Clean off my desk.

Blow dry my hair one day.

And there it is, folks.  Psychiatric honesty at it’s finest.  For $250, no less (no, she doesn’t accept insurance).

I can’t wait to see her again in two weeks.  Needless to say I won’t dare show up makeup-less or with undone hair.

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.

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.