Damn Disney Movies

Long ago my viewpoint on relationships with the opposite sex were quite simple.
A man and a woman meet, fall in love, and spend the rest of their life together.
All Walt Disney's fault.
He had to go and turn all those twisted little fairy tails into pretty little stories with happy endings, even though most of them actually were not.
The Grimm Brothers had it right.
Even Hans Christian Anderson was not so sappy as to assume that coupling with the opposite sex was all it was cracked up to be.
Sometimes The Little Mermaid gets what she wants most in all the world, but at a far more terrible price than she ever imagined. Not only is she mute, but every step she takes with her human legs is as if she is walking on knives.
And the Prince doesn't save her in the end.
She dies a miserable death.
Yep.
That's how the real story goes.
Look it up.
I made up an idealized version of my own life.
I married this guy that I pretended was The Prince because my parents didn't raise me to know how to take care of myself and I needed the security. I didn't have the self-confidence to make it on my own, and I bought into the idea that a husband meant happily ever after.
And safe.
And not homeless.
That route really was like walking on knives.
It was painful and cruel and did nothing for my self-esteem.
Luckily, I was incapable of just laying down and dying in the end.
My blind dreams did come crashing down on me.
But it wasn't so terrible as you might expect, because the Brothers Grimm were right.
Sometimes things don't work out the way you might imagine, but there is always a lesson to be learned from the experience.
I learned, for example, that you can lose everything and you still get up the next day and you can still rebuild everything again.
Life doesn't end just because you have a broken heart.
And, as my precious child once said to me, "The cracks in your heart help the light to shine in."
So I'm looking at life differently, and I am slowly reconstructing and remodeling how I view relationships with members of the opposite sex.
I've mentioned before, but it bears mentioning again, that the first step is to view each individual as a person first, and as a gender only secondarily.
Every man I meet is not a prospective husband.
Being married, after all, did not guarantee that I was going to be happy.
I like being an individual who can make her own decisions; I like being free.
Sure, you can have both those things and be married, too.
I just know that for myself I have to learn a few more lessons first.
Like how to make my own decisions, what freedom means to me, and what will really make me happy.
No person on this earth will ever "make" you happy.
Happiness is not the inclusion of a person in your every day life.
That's too much to ask of one person.
If that person's only reason for existence is supposed to be "making" you happy, then how the hell is that person ever supposed to be happy?
I know some will tell me that they will be happy because your reason for existence will be to "make" them happy.
You can't.
Happiness is a choice.
They have to choose to be happy, and they can't lay all that on just you.
Therefore, I think it is healthier if we each see to our own happiness.
Then we actually have something to offer another person.
We can share our happiness.
I find some guy down the road who will buy into that view of relationships, I will literally welcome him with open arms.
Though I might not marry him.
I'd be content just to have someone around to share happiness with, and also to be there with me when things go wrong.
Meantime, I've got my own life to live, my own goals for myself.
I want to become financially solvent all by myself, to be able to take care of myself.
If I can do that, then I know I'm not just trying to suck some guy in out of a need to feel safe and secure only.
I say this because I think that's what all the nightmares are about.
I think I will continue to dream that I am searching for something I cannot find and getting trapped in the past with my father or my ex-husband so long as I continue to live out my days struggling to make ends meet, afraid that I might lose everything again. So long as I feel that insecurity and anxiety, the nightmares will continue.
I have to fix that.
And I have to do it myself.
This is the hardest battle I've ever fought.
Mostly because I still fall back on the idea that I have to have someone else in my life to make me happy.
I want to be rescued by Prince Charming.
Damn Disney movies.
I want someone to love me unconditionally, to enjoy life with, and to catch me when I'm falling so that I don't ever have to be afraid again.
Maybe I have to learn to do those things for myself.
I know that I can, because I've done it over and over again.
I have to admit, though, that I just get tired of doing it alone every time.
I want someone to hold my hand and walk with me.
Something as simple as that.
And that doesn't require any legal commitment so much as an emotional one.
So I think that's what I want.
I just want someone to want to be there with me.
Supportive.
Kind.
Even when I was married, I didn't know what that felt like.

Ten Steps Toward Kicking Depression's Ass Before It's Even Left the Starting Gate

Feeling a little depressed tonight.
It's like a light blinking on my dashboard, alerting me to a problem that needs to be fixed, a sign that changes must be made.
Why depressed?
Probably not taking care of myself again.

I have a lot going on in my life right now. Been "too busy" to mind my internal condition, or to feed my physical upkeep. Always a bad thing when I let those things go.
Things begin to fall apart, like paint peeling from a house. Of course, that's what vinyl siding is for, so that metaphor sucks. I can't cover this up and pretend it's not here. Instead...


I Must:

1.  Eat properly
2.  Exercise regularly
1. Set up a schedule for exercise 
2. Set out clothes and gym supplies the night before
3. Sleep on a specific schedule
1. Stick with a bedtime routine
2. Cut Internet browsing a set time before bed
4. Call one friend or family member every day
5. Paint again
6. Write my Morning Pages religiously again
7. Make time each day for working on my novel
8. Get my prescriptions checked and renewed by a doctor
9. Make steps toward accomplishing goals and stick with them
10. Get involved in the community somewhere. Helping others always helps me appreciate my own life more.

I know all the right things to do.

The trick, of course, is doing them.

I think it helps if I start with one or two steps on the above list and then gradually add others.

My legs have been feeling like I have restless leg syndrome lately - I'll bet some regular exercise would fix that, improve my mood, and help me get more fit, to boot. It's a great start.

But it's ten at night, so I think I will make rice pudding instead.

Comfort food.

Not the best option, perhaps, but the easiest in the moment.

Rescued by Manic Mechanic Angels

A few weeks ago my car, a 1996 Oldsmobile Cierra, died.
I know that it was really dead because the auto repair shop refused to charge exorbitant amounts to make any unnecessary repairs upon it.
With very little money for a new vehicle, I have been driving my friend's old van back and forth to work and shopping around for something that my bank might be willing to take a risk and give me a loan on - something around $5,000, as that seems the most I could afford to pay back as well as the most I dare ask for. The search has gone badly because I am so busy with moving into a new apartment, homework, and the new job. That, and even for $5,000 as opposed to the little I have in the bank, it is not easy to find a good car.

This week I had to go to a conference for the Michigan Reading Association on Mackinac Island. Mind you, I'm not complaining that I had to spend three days at a vacation spot taking notes on literacy and education, paid in part by my financial aid, but the extra expense of eating out and gas money bit into my meager savings toward a new vehicle.
The drive was long and my borrowed van was starting to rock loudly from side to side, but I made it in time to catch my ferry and spend a fine time listening to published authors talk about all the things that mean the most to me in the field of education by day and exploring the island by night.
It was a tricky place to be alone in, but I have cultivated a love of my own company over the past six years in such a way that I can be alone without being lonely.
It took me a few years to become aware of that distinction, and so my contentment was hard-won.
You appreciate things more when you work hard for them, though.
Also, when you go without things for a very long time, you appreciate every single little good thing that comes your way. I loved every minute on that island. I loved the long hours sitting in chairs at Mission Point Resort. Sure my hindquarters were tired, but they were tired in the most beautiful resort on the island. Yes, I was trying hard not to spend money on anything but food (fudge is food, right? Can't leave Mackinac Island without fudge!), and yet all kinds of nice little things came my way free of charge.

I found myself sitting at a table over lunch with the author of my children's favorite storybook, The Pout Pout Fish. It's a great little book about how we have the power to change our attitudes and how others can help us to change them, too. The author was a charming woman, and very kind - she gave me signed copies of her books to pass along to my kids. Souvenirs of my stay for the two most precious people I'd had to leave behind: Check.
I was inspired by the stories of Christopher Paul Curtis, author of The Watsons Go to Birmingham and Bud, Not Buddy. He grew up in Flint (I hail from around there) and worked in a factory for thirteen years before publishing his first novel. As a speaker, he was as funny as any comedian and yet brought me to tears with some of the stories of his mother and the lessons she taught him.
I made a point of seeing all the authors who spoke on bullying or intolerance, as the connection between those concepts with literature is something I've been exploring for my Master's thesis. I could write an entirely separate post on those sessions alone, but there's something else I want to get to first.

This something else did not happen until I was already back on the mainland driving home. I had spent the afternoon of my last day on the island literally walking around the entire outside of the place, which took three and a half hours (four miles during which I had to go to the bathroom) in my cheap K-mart shoes, and I was driving on I-75 toward home literally thanking God for land masses that allow you to drive cars upon them when suddenly I heard a LOUD bumping and flapping noise from the front right of the van.
 Flat tire, I figured, and pulled to the side of the road. Please God, don't make me walk any further!

Sure enough, upon further examination I found that the tread had peeled completely off the tire and slapped against the lower running board so hard that it was falling off. All that was really left of the tire was the rubber underneath, cross-hatched with shreds of metal.
I scanned the road around me, trying to come up with a plan. There was an exit for some town called Wolverine just ahead, so I got back in the car and flapped my way off the freeway and coasted into the parking lot of a little mom-and-pop joint called The Whistle Stop.
My phone was dead, so I stepped inside and found a table with an electrical outlet beside it and had a seat. Had to call my sister to see if she could rescue me somehow.
She couldn't.
I was three hours away and she didn't have the gas money, plus the baby was sick. She Googled my location and suggested I drive seven minutes further to Gaylord and find a hotel for the night, since it was late, and see if I could get to a shop in the morning.

Exhausted from my trek around the island earlier, I limped the van to Gaylord and checked in to the only room available (two Queen-sized beds for my one tired body - More car money down the drain!) and went sadly to bed, wondering if I bring all this bad luck upon myself or if it's just random, and why it couldn't go bother someone else for a change...

When I drug myself out in the morning equipped with the telephone numbers of local auto repair shops to drive to, I found that the tire was now completely flat.
Figured.
I popped the trunk and took a look at the spare tire.
No tire iron.
Of course.

Then I spotted a small collision shop across the parking lot, behind the hotel. It looked so small and shoddy that I thought it must be abandoned, but there it was - an OPEN sign in the front window.
With a gleam of hope, I crossed the parking lot and the little road between me and the shop, then drifted in through the front door.
There was a windowed office to my right and an old van bench to my left, and voices coming from out in the shop. I sat down on the bench for a moment to get my bearings and decide if anyone would return to the office or if I would have to go back there and see if I could get someone.
I'm always afraid to ask for help, especially today, since I'd given the hotel what surely was close to the last of my money. My island hotel had charged me roughly $400 more than I'd bargained for.

I took a breath and headed into the Man Cave.
There were cars jacked up all over the shop that I had to wend my way through, maze-like, toward the voices, which were definitely all male and uncensored.
I came out into the light of an open garage door and found three men, looking like ZZ Top, wearing Harley Davidson t-shirts with the sleeves ripped out, standing around a Cadillac swapping wild, profane stories and ribbing one another about whose car was better than whose.
"Look, asshole, mine is a Ninety-Seven!" declared one, a shorter man with the ZZ Top beard and a grimy blue bandanna tied tightly over his grey hair.
"Yeah?" countered a tall fellow in a tweed-like cap with soulful brown George Harrison eyes and a pleasant voice, "Why, those fuckers stopped paying any attention to what they were even doing after Ninety-Three, so mine is the superior vehicle." He caught sight of me, kicked his companion with the scraggly beard in the shin, and removed his hat. "Hey, don't look now, Jim, but there's a lady in our presence!"

Jim, clearly the owner of the establishment, had the kind of twinkly blue eyes over his long beard that always makes me fall almost  in love with any older gent.
 Language aside, I had a really good feeling about these guys.
Jim was all red in the cheeks and already apologizing, but I grinned and said cheerfully, "I don't mind; I've worked in factories!"
"Still," said Jim, "we're awfully sorry. Is there something we can do for you?"
I explained what had happened the night before and asked if they might lend me a tire iron.
The men exchanged amused glances, and Jim said, "You plan on using that tire iron yourself, M'am?"
Attempting to be independent, I said, "If the lug nuts are really tight, I figure I can give the tire iron a good kick with my foot."
They looked at one another again, and Jim asked, "What did you say you do for a living?"
"I'm a substitute teacher."
"What do you teach?" asked the tall man politely.
"English, if someone would hire me, but you know how the economy is."
The man held out his hand. "My name is Bob, what's yours?"
I took his hand and we shook. "Heather. I like the name Bob. Nice and simple."

"Yep," he agreed, "Spelled the same in either direction. I like Heather, too." Peering across the parking lot at my van, Bob started clapping. "God Bless America for paying its teachers so well that you've gotta drive that piece of crap!"
I laughed.
"What year is that van you've got over there?" asked Jim.
Embarrassed, I had to admit that I didn't exactly know. "I borrowed it from a friend to get to the conference," I explained sheepishly.
Bob started clapping again.
Jim amended, "God Bless America for paying its teachers so well that your actual vehicle is even worse than that piece of shit!"
"Language, now, Jim --" intoned ZZ Top, whose name turned out to be Tim.
"Sorry," said Jim. He added wistfully, "I wish I'd been good at English. My English teacher, Mrs. Nelson, used to make me sit under her desk for reading comic books in class. The Lone Ranger."
"Really?" I said, "Nowadays, we kind of figure that so long as you're reading something, you're doing pretty good for yourself."
"Well, I like her!" declared Tim.
At that, Jim smiled at me. "How about I walk over there and take a look at that tire with you?"

I thanked him heartily and he followed me over, telling me about his shop. He bought it years back when this particular part of Gaylord was just a two-track, and had lived in Gaylord all his life. Tim, surprisingly, was actually his nephew, the son of a brother eight years older than him who had died some years ago. "We'd lost touch, but then my sister found him again, and it was like having my brother back. He and I have been working together ever since. Bob, that other guy - he's just a real good friend. We've known each other forever. He's got that Cadillac you saw over there. Thinks it's his baby. But he's got this Woody that leaves all the car shows with awards like you wouldn't believe. Now, neither of those guys are about to admit this to you, but I'm actually the Grand Poo-bah of the group."
"Oh, I could tell the minute I saw you," I assured him with a grin.

By this time we were standing at the side of the van looking down at the tire. Jim walked around the van and studied all my tires grimly, shaking his head. I popped the trunk so he could take a look at the spare.
"I'll tell you what," he said, "You can't hurt that sorry old tire any more than it's been hurt already. How about you pull it on up to the side where we're all at, and we'll help you get this spare on? We've got all the tools and everything over there, and it won't take but a minute."
I followed him back to the shop with the van thumping and rumbling as if it were going over uneven metal rocks all along the right side. Bob, seeing what was up, got into his Cadillac and backed it up to make room for me.

Jim jacked the car up while Tim worked on the spare.
As they worked, Bob engaged me in conversation about car shows and The Blues while occasionally calling out taunts to Tim: "Aw, come on, now: You'd think you'd have had the sense to check the tire pressure before now! And you call yourself a professional!"
"No point checking the pressure until after the spare's on the car, goddamn genius,"grunted Tim good-naturedly.
"Hey!" barked Bob, "Watch it around the lady!"
"Sorry, lady." Tim grinned at me and hauled the jack back to where Jim had pulled it from. It wasn't the type that would fit in your trunk, if you've never seen one.

Jim and Tim disappeared around the corner of the shop for a few minutes while Bob told me about his
nephew who teaches High School Up North somewhere.
When the other two returned, Bob asked, "Have you got any 15-inches lying around that she could have?"
"Nope," said Jim mildly, "We just looked." He went out into the yard and started digging through a pile of tires, muttering to himself.
I realized they were talking about replacing all my tires.
"How much is this going to run me?" I asked anxiously.
Jim pulled a tire out from under something that looked like part of a go-cart -- or maybe a motorcycle. "Hey, the way I figure," he said, examining it, "You've got us by the -- I mean, you caught us back here. You've got something on us,what with the way you heard us talking and all. Seems to me like we need to work up some kind of a deal."
"Too bad we don't have four fifteens," said Tim. He scratched his bandanna and eyed Bob's Cadillac.
"They're the wrong size, dumbass," smiled Bob. "Besides, I'm still usin' em."
Tim grinned back. "She don't want your sorry-assed 2003 tires."

"Okay," said Jim, coming back up to the van and putting a new spare in the back. "New plan. Let's go over to Tom's across the street."
"I'll tell you what," said Bob lazily, "You go with her to Tom's while Tim keeps an eye on the shop, and give me a call when you've got her all squared away. I'll come get you."
"Oh, gee, thanks," said Jim, "Like I've never walked it before."
Bob shrugged. "Suit yourself." He turned to me. "It was a pleasure meeting you, Heather."
Tim smiled and waved at me as I got into the van with Jim and drove across the busy main street.

At the tire shop, Jim explained to Tom that "the hotel got all her money and she just needs to get home to Big Rapids all right. I've got a spare here for you to mount for her so that she doesn't get another flat without a spare, but I was hoping you might have something better around here."
"Sure thing," said Tom, a short, round little guy with receding black hair and John Lennon glasses.
After a few minutes in conference with Tom over by a pile of spares, Jim came back and explained that Tom was going to rotate my tires and switch them up so that the spare tire was coupled with a tire of about the same size so that it would drive more smoothly. He cautioned me to drive slowly on the freeway and wished me luck.
"So I'm not going to owe Tom anything, either?" I asked.
Jim smiled. "Nope. I come over here all the time. We know each other pretty well. There's only one catch."
"What's that?"
"You have to promise me that the next time you're in Gaylord you're going to stop by and see us -- And if you don't, I will know!"
I made my promise right into his twinkly blue eyes and then gave him a big impulsive hug.
Jim wiped his eyes and told me that his wife had died about a year back.
It seems it had been a long time since anyone had given him a hug.
"Wait till that asshole Bob hears about this!" he said happily, and walked out of the tire shop into the sunshine.
When I texted my friend Kara about it, she was vastly amused, and said that God must have some sense of humor, since she'd prayed that some nice, grandfatherly sort would come to my rescue.
It seems to me that whenever something really bad happens to me, something else always happens that's very good.

Strength in Weakness?

Read recently that vulnerability is the key to healing.
Hard concept to grasp when vulnerability has been the source of your being wounded in the first place, and yet there is validity to it.
If I try to hold back and be self-sufficient, attempt to keep my cool and not ever discuss any of those wounds, I stand the risk of never feeling close enough to anyone else.
It actually takes great hope, strength, and courage to be vulnerable.
You cannot be vulnerable with the goal of making others pity or rescue you.
The real point is to learn to be honest with yourself about who you are, to love and accept yourself with all your faults, and to learn to appreciate your strengths more.
Can't do that unless you are brave enough to put it all out there and face up to it.
Just make certain that you are choosing to do this with someone whom you can trust.

Ms Wholigan's Great Big Threatening Button!: Images and Amature Poetry

Ms Wholigan's Great Big Threatening Button!: Images and Amature Poetry

Little Miracles

Well, you know, heaven forbid that the only things I ever write on this blog are sad things.
It's kind of the nature of the beast when I'm just crazy enough to write in a blog the same as I do in my journals. You're really lucky, though, because on the blog I spare you random remarks about the groceries I need to buy, dishes that need done, or complaints about one of my siblings occasionally annoying me. Only the best for you, baby!
The fact is, a lot of really wonderful, amazing things have happened to me, too. I concentrate on those whenever I need to remind myself to keep on living.
I believe I am actually happy more than I am sad.

Most recently, I got a card in the mail from - see if you can follow this - my friend on facebook who actually used to be the mother of a friend of my sister's. Not too hard to get, right? Just a strange sort of connection. I have only met this woman face-to-face about twice in my entire life, but she asked if I would 'friend' her on facebook and, because there was no reason to say no, I acquiesced.
To my surprise, she has faithfully followed my every comment over the past four or five years, and often responded with great humor and grace.

Mind you, following me on facebook is a hazardous thing. I re-post way too many quotes and jokes - I know it - and some people wonder if I'm a real person, I gather, because my mission on facebook is a simple, three-part formula: Either 1. Make them laugh, 2. Encourage or inspire them, or 3. Poke fun at myself.
Occasionally I will give in and just celebrate when something really good happens, or I will mention that I didn't sleep most of the night - as if that is news. Luckily, people humor me in this.
I have no time or patience for people that get too pushy or too whiny on that forum, and every once in awhile someone's personality will be soooo negative that I am forced to block them.
Them, and that weird stalker guy who always said things that were wildly inappropriate to me, and picked fights with all my friends and family. That was a strange experience, but I blocked his ass.
The blog is easier.
I blab, and very seldom do I even know the people personally who read what I have to say.
Even allowed this slight anonymity, I try to spare you a little.

Anyway, the card: It had a puppy on the outside, and inside it read, "I admire you and how far you have come on your journey to overcome adversity. I hope you find a job soon. I am rooting for you!
I am enclosing a belated graduation gift for you.
You go, girl!"

I originally graduated and moved out of my home town about twenty-five years ago now.
And that was no small amount of change the woman sent me!

This is not to blow my own horn. It is to say this: I'm humbled that I should have gotten my message right and that it might inspire people. Even more than that, I'm grateful for all these little miracles that keep me going on my path. These kinds of things happen to me all the time. It's crazy that sometimes I forget and despair. Yep, that would be why I'm actually a crazy crazy, dangerous individual - that I could forget something so obvious as the great mystery and the beauty that makes life so worth living. When I do get down, I simply forget to even look for those things, or to those people.
Shame on me.

I have to be positive.
I have to be inspiring.
I have to be an optimist.
I don't do it because I'm a saint or because I need the attention or because I need to look good.
I do it because I have to be a role model for my children.
I want so much more for them than I was ever able to have, and so I want to raise them in such a way that they have all the skills they need to get those things for themselves.
And they have got to be positive and optimistic, and that will be inspiring.

Lost and Trapped

Some people have recurring dreams - nightmares, really - that continue from night to night without any logical explanation. I've heard that it's the emotions behind them that are most meaningful, while other times people will come up with some mental block that the dream represents. Me, lucky soul that I am - I have recurring Dream Themes, two of them:

1. I am lost and I am searching for something that I can never find. Doesn't matter where I'm at, and I never know what it is exactly that I'm looking for. I've been lost in mazes, bookstores, libraries, old school buildings I once knew, department stores, yard sales, cornfields, houses I lived in or visited in my childhood - the only consistency in the location is that it seems to go on endlessly. All the while I'm wandering these places, I'm looking frantically for something important that I just have to find. I never find it. Never.

2. In the second dream scenario I'm trapped, and no matter what I do, I can't get out. These dreams are more consistent in that I'm always trapped in the past with one or the other of the same two people: My father or my ex-husband. (Hell, there's probably not much difference between the two) These are the nightmares, the ones hardest to develop any kind of perspective on because they almost physically hurt me, like all the nerves in my body are burning with a gas flame. I can't seem to cry over them, or to scream all my terror, or ever to express in what way it has the power to still hurt if it can't be touched. I froze out those feelings as solidly as I could a long time ago, but sometimes the steady fire seems to eat a hole somewhere in my head and the dream thoughts follow me even in daylight.

The first of these dreams I ever had was when I was only about six or seven years old. In this dream, I was trapped in my parents' bedroom with my father screaming at me. I remember the colors pink and red and the strange horror at the sight of his bare chest and the terrible screaming rage booming from where his face ought to be, but he had no face, and he had no head.

The other one I remember most vividly was from when I was a morose teen aged girl. I was trapped in the back seat of the car and my dad was driving it downhill and right into Lake Michigan. I was screaming in terror and jerking the door handles, but they were stuck. I screamed and pleaded with him to please stop, but he wouldn't, his face devoid of all emotion, and I was still pounding on doors and windows as the car crashed into the waters and I woke up. That dream always struck me as indicative of what it felt like to be a child of an alcoholic, trapped in a world I didn't understand and didn't want to stay in, but unable to leave of my own volition.

So what did I go and do? I "escaped" by marrying someone just as horrible, damn it all to hell. I chose that cage myself, stepped into it of my own free will, and then didn't realize that since it was of my own making, I actually had the power to free myself of it at any time. Instead, I fell into that same sick old pattern of unquestioning obedience for fear of anger and retribution, that blind helplessness of the little girl trapped inside who never grew up, never escaped from  the car, or from that awful dark-paneled bedroom that makes the walls of my current apartment so intolerable for me. Once again I am reminded of Alice Walker's assertion that "The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any."

All my nightmares are variations on the same two themes. The worst of them are of a sexual nature where I'm physically trapped by someone's body, but that's just awful enough that even I really can't write about it, and that's saying a lot for me, the woman who tells all on the old blog to complete strangers. I wouldn't share these kinds of things at all - I swear I'm not really such an exhibitionist, or looking for any kind of pity or attention for this - except that I have this obstinate hope that I could somehow help someone else out of the cage. In my dreams still I am always trapped in that old trailer or that old neighborhood where I lived with my ex-husband for so many unhappy years, struggling to get out but thwarted at every turn. In last night's variation, I was running from door to door and pulling violently on all the knobs, repeatedly twisting them as hard as I could and yanking back on them without the least bit of give on the other end. My ex-husband was in the house, calm and cold, burning steadily. He didn't need to chase me or to scream at me for me to be intimidated and afraid, because my father had done all the groundwork for him. All he had to do was stand by silently and wait for me crumble and to give up. The most horrible thing about these dreams is the inevitableness of this outcome. I will give up, and he will have me, and there is nothing I can ever do about it.

So says the dream, but it lies.

I wake up and I remind myself that I freed myself of that old trap a long time ago, and I never have to go back. I try not to dwell on the words of the lawyer from back then, the one who told me that if I wanted full custody of my children again I should go back to my ex-husband and "play nice" for another year or two until I could gather up enough police reports of domestic violence to use against him in court. I remember the muscles tightening in the back of my neck in revulsion and thinking that the lawyer didn't understand what he was asking of me, to suggest I go back to that life, back to that sick parody of an intimate relationship where I was locked in powerless submission and slowly being erased from my own memory. The lawyer made me feel as if I had to perjure myself, to lie and choose my mortal soul over the lives of my children, and to this day I feel the weight of the guilt that comes from a mother who doesn't choose her children over her own soul, as any good mother should do. 

And so it seems I have to dream my way through those emotions over and over again, re-experiencing the powerlessness and the fear in nightly cycles until I figure out how to free myself of them. I try to do so by living my life well and free, by fighting for financial and emotional stability, to be happy and well-rounded despite the imperfection that is my life. I try to accept my non-traditional motherhood and to make the absolute best of it possible, but at the same time I have to struggle not to become so engrossed in that process that I lose my own identity again. I can no longer allow my ex-husband the power of being able to guilt me into doing more than I should or to stop taking care of my own needs. I have to keep telling myself that my children are happier and healthier when I am happy and healthy. This is a daily struggle, and when I lie down in the night I fight my demons all over again in my dreams.

How long until my soul gets it right?

Not Sleeping...

Putting the Dreams on Hold

Having been denied even an interview for the latest teaching job I was hoping they'd hire me for, I am back to applying for a chance to work any job immediately available.

I shall be forced to move away from this town and will have to seek work and shelter elsewhere.
I'll be leaving behind some fantastic friends - happens wherever I come and go.
Most of them will follow me closely on facebook for as long as that form of socialization is available.
It's nice to know that I'm doing something right. Must be, or people wouldn't remember me and want to encourage me like they do.
Meanwhile, I of course will keep right on writing and hoping and believing. In this sense, I never shelf the dreams. And this is because the alternative is hardly feasible.

Among My Favorite Quotes...

Forgive my brevity (the soul of wit).
My eyes are going to burn right out of their sockets
if I stare at the computer screen
one minute longer.

The Free Writing Becomes a Rough Draft

Well, I always did intend to come back and let you know how my free-writing session went. As I am procrastinating on a major project tonight, I thought I'd take a few minutes to talk about it.

I decided to write the three run-on sentenced pages of whatever first came to mind, and the first things to fall out went from affectionately reminiscing to something much darker.

I recalled how I had learned this writing technique from an English teacher I once had. Somehow this reminded me of how that teacher had once described to me what it was like to teach English in an Australian prison a few years back. I thought of how the At-Risk students whom I love statistically could go that route if they don't get my message and reclaim their lives from adversity. I thought of all their hope and promise, and I thought of how depressing my old English teacher had found the job at the prison. These were people who had messed up their lives far worse than what they were born to. Surprisingly, perhaps, many of them were charismatic, likable sorts. You might find yourself rooting for them to learn to read and then use that knowledge to make something of their lives, but few of them actually ever did. Plus, too, the very environment was not conducive to learning - cinder block walls in drab, dirty colors with guards posted everywhere and a strip search to look forward to upon entry... okay, so I made the strip search part up, but I know there was some sort of oppressive routine upon entering the building every morning, and I believe even leaving in the late afternoon.

Then my free-wheeling mind wandered to a stray line I had written in my journal that described an unwanted or uninspired orgasm as "feeling as if your body were wordlessly, involuntarily shuddering out tears of loss" -- to that asinine congressman who had claimed that rape victims can't be impregnated because their bodies "shut down" if the contact is unwanted. I can't believe a male person in this century would even say anything so ignorant. The body acts independently of the mind all the time - or maybe the other way around. People with PTSD know that all too well.

What I've ended up with is a very rough draft of a rather dark story about a triangle of sorts in which there is a lot of unspoken tension between character actions and desires, a teacher, a convict, and a woman, all of whom know one another but who have never all been in the same room together. I had kind of hoped that I would come up with something a little more pretty and inspiring than that for my first short story in a decade, but I have to assume that if it came out of me so easily that it needs to be out. Maybe I'll post it when I find time to actually write out a more fleshed-out draft, but that will have to wait until I've completed what I'm procrastinating on.

Back to the grindstone...

Writer's Block

I do a lot of essays for the blog - just thoughts that I've had that I want to share, or things on my mind that I feel I have to share. A friend challenged me to write a short story. It occurs to me, upon considerable thought, that I have not actually written anything good of that nature since I was in my twenties. It's all novels, essays, and the occasional poem if I really can't help myself. And so I sat down to write, and realized that I haven't written any short stories in years because I haven't thought up any new idea to write about. The novels are like obssessions that I have to act upon, the essays are a mission, and the poems are a compulsion. What are short stories made of?


Of course, I know all the tricks of the trade, all the things you do to break free of The Block and get something on the page. The one that always used to work for me was FreeWriting. I could write three pages of whatever pops into my head and then turn that into a story. But would it be a good story?

Let's find out...

Always Full

Optimism, however fake it feels when I am forcing it, is a highly effective weapon against defeat and despair. Better than optimism, though, is to learn to accept things as they are and learn to be good whatever happens.







1/2 Air


I don't know where I'm going to live or what my job is going to end up being.
And yet, I am good because I live in the moment and prepare for the future.
I appreciate the good things in my life and focus less on the things that could cause anxiety.
My life is nothing but potential.When I don't know what to do about my life situation, I concentrate on the things that I do know what to do about...


1/2 Water

The good things are many.
I know that if I have anything at all I can give it away.
I know that I can still teach, still love, and still hope.
I have a car and a roof over my head, but those things would just be exhisting.
Better than those things: I have friends and family who love me.
I ran for a full hour today and it felt great!

Technically, the glass is always full.
It's all a matter of perspective.




For the Kids Who Aren't Like the Rest

Probably I never would have known what true compassion is had I not had a sister who had suffered a traumatic brain injury when she was a toddler. Reduced to roughly the IQ of a four-year-old, she underwent numerous forms of ridicule throughout the years we were growing up together. My parents, frustrated and without resources back then, were often angry and impatient when she couldn't do things as other kids could do them. Various kids throughout the neighborhood and from school were constantly making fun of her or mocking her. Mom and Dad's disappointment was crushing to her self-esteem, but the cruelty of my peers toward my sister seemed only to hurt me. She wasn't intellectually advanced enough to even know that they were making fun of her - Oftentimes she would smile along with them, because surely if they were grinning around her, it had to be because she had done something right for a change.

Over the years, as my sister's body grew and her mind remained the same, she struggled to stay happy despite the onset of horemones that she couldn't understand and the growing anger and frustration of coming to see that her younger siblings were all doing better and developing more than she could ever seem to do. She didn't understand why. Why didn't Mom and Dad love her the same as all the rest? Why didn't she ever seem to get anything right? The pain of this has stuck with me all of my life. I don't mean that I am traumatized for life and can never be whole again because of the thoughtlessness of kids I never saw again, or because of the well-intentioned but ultimately harsh  efforts of my parents to raise a child who would never grow up. What I mean is that when I see a child who is different, for whatever reason, I know that there's a real person inside of them, a unique, (and therefore beautiful), precious individual. I know that the words and actions of those around them might make them feel sad, then frustrated, and then outright belligerent to the point that no one else can even stand to be around them anymore, but I also know that I'm one who knows better. I know that when my sister was sent to bed without dinner for not using proper table manners I, determined to combat what I knew was injustice based upon misunderstanding, would always be there to sneak a sandwhich to her. It's funny. As I type this, tears come to my eyes now even though those times are from long ago. I know what compassion is. In the dictionary, it is described as the understanding and empathy for the suffering of others. In practice, I just know to look a little deeper when I meet someone who is difficult or even outright annoying to understand.

It was for the sake of my sister that in school I always sought out the underdogs and made them my friends. I wasn't always happy with the results, because of course this put me under fire, too, but I had a passionate conviction that I was doing the right thing. Everyone left the table in the lunchroom wherever one little girl would sit. Only a little girl myself, I would go and sit beside her. For some reason in early high school I became a craven coward and would mostly feel sorry for a kid being teased from a distance, and at best would find them afterward and ask if they needed anything or wanted to talk. Having become a target myself, I tried to blend into the crowd as much as possible. Sometimes the only person who might smile at me all day was a teacher who liked my story or admired my artwork. Having become a target myself, I felt empathy and a connection to every single student in the school who was misunderstood: the dumb kids, the ugly kids - even the really bad kids.

I remember also the time when I was paired with two stupid boys in Home Economics class and one of them called someone a "retard." Losing my patience, I told him that my sister went to the Intermediate School District, and that if he wanted to call anyone names he should come on out to our house and meet her for himself. I think I expected this to subdue him in some way, but instead his face took on the kind of disgust you might feel toward stepping into a pile of dog feces. He asked, "God, how do you live around that? Doesn't it make you sick just looking at her?" What stung the most about this question was that he wasn't even trying to be mean anymore; he honestly didn't comprehend why somebody didn't just come along and clean up the shit. When I think back to some of the truly sickening things that kids did and said to other kids within the walls of the schools I went to over the years, it's a wonder I ever wanted to step anywhere near a school building again.

In a way, it was for my sister's sake that I became a teacher. It was also because of those teachers who had noticed me, encouraged me, and more or less kept me from runnin away from home and ending up on the streets somewhere rather than put up with things at home or school a moment longer. But mostly it is for the sake of all those children out there who need someone to look past the surface and see a real person with feelings in there. To this day, I still love the kids who are in special education, the kids who don't look like everyone else, and I think somehow most especially those kids who have just had enough of it all and are angry. I find those kids and I smile at them and ask them questions and just keep right on believing in them, even when they project all that anger and frustration right up in my face. I know that if I am compassionate hard enough and long enough, somehow that will eventually pierce their deceptive surface and reveal the beautiful soul inside. Sometimes I come home discouraged at how long it is taking, but I am encouraged to know that most of the kids I see really do have the capacity to grow up and make something of their lives if they can come to believe that of themselves. And I know that it starts with me, because "me" started when someone else believed in me. It's discouraging when they backtrack or act out, but I know that when they learn to trust that my empathy and understanding are real and permanent, they will do anything for me. I've seen it time after time. The "bad" kid is reformed - at first maybe only for me - and if then I can take them just that one step further toward doing anything for themselves, then I have done my true job as an educator.

While I was substitute teaching today, I was reminded of all this by a fairly simple encounter. By nature of being a substitute, students come and go and it is seldom that I really get to know them or that they really get to know me, but I never let that stop me from trying.

Today a kid came swaggering in looking rough and mean and disrespectful, slammed his belongings on a desk, and began pulling out his laptop with the all-too-familiar "I hate school and everybody in it, and I really hate you!" look. Because some teachers I have known take this demeanor personally, they will feel instant animosity right back at kids like this. I know better. Why, that kid doesn't hate me - He doesn't even know me well enough to hate me yet. I smile at him. The kid gives me the "Don't you even look at me, bitch!" glare. I say, "Hi! As you can see, I'm your substitute today. We will be doing - or, in the case of some of these guys - not doing all the usual type of work that your teacher gives you when there's a substitute. I'm happy to be here for you if you need me." I know that I sound cheesy and as if I am not taking my job seriously, and so do the kids, but it relaxes them to the point that they don't even mind when they find out I'm actually going to make them do their work.

This kid was easier than some. His face registered surprize and he relaxed a notch as he got out his work.

He asked hopelessly if he could borrow a pencil.

I smiled and said, "Of course!" giving him my last one.

I then focused everywhere else at once (substitutes have that super power, you know) and didn't trouble him again until after he had reluctantly brought out his work. Now, this is where I really got him. The majority of his classmates were standing around talking and being disrespectful for real, but I didn't pay them any mind. Instead, I got up with my notebook and a pen and walked over to the angry kid's desk. I stood there until I got his attention, then asked, "What's your name?"

Angry, distrustful expression again that clearly stated "Right! Fine! Single me out and tell the damn teacher what a hard time I gave you like all the other substitutes do!"

He snarled his name.

I wrote it down and said casually as I walked on along the row, "I don't write up kids that give me a hard time, you know - I just make a note of the names of all the kids who actually sat down and did their work." I didn't look back, just took down the measly two other names of diligent students before going back to the desk.

As usually happens when I take this approach, students sat down and grew quiet. I won't say that they all go right to work on the promise that I'll put them on my Nice list, but it's amusing to me how many kids will suddenly want to know what they're supposed to be working on (never mind that I already told them- of course they weren't listening before) or have questions about specific details of the assignment. Now, I'm not Super Sub for nothing, but I have to confess here that this method only works if I am substituting in the classroom of a teacher who has excellent classroom management skills already established. The teachers who have no particular control over their classroom even when they're there have highly difficult classrooms to control in their absence. I did have the fortune to have substituted in this classroom before, however, and knew what was going to work for this group.

My now diligent student finished his work before the rest of the class, gave me back the pencil he had borrowed with something like awe on his face, and then asked if he could use the bathroom. I let him. While he was gone, I looked over his work. Not surprizingly, it was very well done. Some of the Angry kids are angry because they're frustrated at assignments well beyond their level of comprehension, but I could tell this was - and he was - one of the Angry kids who was mad because he was really smart and nobody had the patience to find that out anymore. Maybe things were tough at home like for my sister, or maybe they were just tough at school - maybe both. Doesn't matter. I don't look at the situation, I don't look at the surface - I look at the person inside there.

At the end of the hour, this student stopped by the desk one more time and said, without quite making eye contact but with a friendly smile, "You would make a great teacher!"

I smiled back. "I know, right? Thank you so much for taking the time to see that about me!"
(I acutally hate the phrase 'I know, right?' but students are always amused when I use it)

Anyway, I thought that I would write about that today, because this is the reason why I personally became a teacher.

Vocabulary is Sexy

I love a man who uses the word egregious in every day conversation!
I have simple needs, really.

Confidence

Sometimes I wish I had the brazen confidence of a little boy. They may screw up a lot, but I admire the way they come out swinging and are unafraid.
I even wish I had a little more of Calvin's ego.
How nice to know who you are at your best and to expect due treatment from all the rest.
Put me in my areas of strength, and I think I do have this confidence.
I have the confidence that there is no teacher in the world who can stand before a class and set up such an intricate, well-balanced performance that contributes, entices, involves, entertains and engages students in such a way that they find themselves demanding to learn. This is me at my best and most confident in a public forum. (Conversely, on a bad day, I would probably tell you the opposite)
I feel confidence when I'm doing any presentation. I'm not a Communication Minor for nothing, I tell you. I love to stand before an audience, get them on my side, and use nothing more than the power of well-chosen words to move them. I've gotten both laughter and tears in the same performance when I've chosen to do so.
Of course, High School students are a much tougher audience. They prefer that you be quick, sharp, and hilarious.
I'm a good public speaker because I can read an audience and know what they require.

I was not always this good.
I will never forget the time when I first stood before an audience and heard the sound of laughter and applause. It was, as I have mentioned elsewhere, when sharing a story I'd written with my fourth grade peers.
But time and circumstances chipped off my shiny veneer of confidence. We moved three times in one year, each time to a different school district. My father's drinking went out of control and frightening things began to happen. A vat of venomous negativity began pouring into my ears every evening after dinner when he came home from work. Nothing and no one was ever ever good enough. I became a  perfectionist who could never meet her own standards. I shrivelled up inside of myself and became all but invisible to the world around me. Social situations had never been easy for me, but once I accepted a vote of no confidence in myself, I was finished.
I dreaded the scrutiny of public presentations with an extreme level of fear equivalent to someone being thrown into a pit of lions. I would become physically ill. I would sweat and shake. I would miss school. I would do whatever I could to get away from standing in front of people and reading anything that I had written. I had this sense that no one would want to hear what I had to say. If it was well-written, they would sneer at me for being arrogant. If it was poorly written, as I suspected, they would laugh at me for being incompetent.

My artistic abilities somewhat relieved me of my low self-esteem. I could always paint, and no one

ever disliked anything I created after my Junior Year of High School. But I didn't get over my fear of public speaking until I was in college. I had to do a speech class, and the Professor had everyone give their speeches in the most nonthreatening environment that she could possibly devise. Our first speech had to be ten whole minutes long, and an introduction of ourselves. I remember observing my classmates, all of whom seemed to have a deadly fear of public speaking themselves, squirm and tremble before the class as if they were in a firing line. In addition to their great discomfort, they were presenting their personal information with all the organization and variety of a resume. After a certain number of days of this with no one dying of anything but perhaps a little boredom, it began to seem just a little bit silly. I decided to bring in one of my paintings, because I knew from High School that a good visual could break the ice like nothing else. I tried to think of what things I had to say about myself that might be interesting or funny. Interesting I wasn't so sure of, but funny, now - funny happened to me all the time. Or maybe I just saw something funny in most situations. Either way life was a little more bearable.

I don't remember exactly what I told the class, but I remember that I opened with one of my favorite stories from art college. One day, my friend James and I were walking down the street together when a man came panting up to us and was begging us for money. "My car just broke down!" the man was explaining urgently, "I got out to get help, and somebody mugged me. I was on my way to my grandmother's house. I had some food to bring to her. She's going into the hospital. She had an accident!"

I was thinking his story sounded a little suspicious and wondering when he was going to mention that there had been a wolf in the house wearing his granny's pajamas, but then I caught sight of the man's feet. Seeing the direction of my gaze, he embellished with a grand sweep of his arms: "And then they stole my shoes!"

"Oh, gosh," said James. James was from a small town in Louisiana and had the most pleasant Southern drawl I think I had ever heard, primarily because he was also the most laid back, pleasant person I have ever known. "That's terrible!" James dug around in his deep pocket and fished out a roll of quarters that I happened to know was for his laundry. "Here you go."

The man grabbed his quarters and ran.
I looked at James accusingly. "James, obviously the man was making all that up!"
James smiled at me slowly and drawled, "Aw, come on, Heather - It was a good story, wasn't it?"

My audience laughed.

I had succeeded in both getting their attention and killing two of the ten minutes that I was supposed to be talking about myself. I segued into my actual story, which was about how I ended up in art college to begin with, and also about how frightened I used to be of being myself around other people. (I secretly still was, but talking about it in the past tense really did seem to help some) I talked about how, through art, I was able to express things to people that I had been unable to do before, and then for a finale I revealed the painting that I'd brought.
My only self-conscious moment occurred just then, when I found myself apologizing that I couldn't draw hands as well as I'd like. My audience loved my painting and the speech anyway, and I got an A.
In this way, I learned something that I have used in all my dealings with people: That, as a general rule,  if you make yourself even a little vulnerable before people, they will be drawn to your side. Get the audience on your side, and from there make them laugh, and from there you can make them do whatever you want - get angry or motivated, cry or feel touched. I have always been a natural storyteller, and now I had the confidence again to do it.

Is There Something I Should be Doing?

"I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet." ~Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar, Chapter 7

Missed opportunity is nothing next to all the opportunities laid aside when the time comes to choose.
No one says it quite like Plath.
This quote spoke to me deeply in high school. Emerging from my parents' home and from the school system that raised me, I had the entire world at my feet. All I had to do was choose where I wanted to be and set the goals to get there.
I wanted to be an artist, a writer, a teacher, a psychologist, an historian.
I damn near threw it all away when I chose not to be lonely and marry my ex-husband instead.
Apparently I never had to worry about the figs rotting before I made up my mind; I had to worry about my inability to delay gratification.
Always I was worried about living my life and making a choice that would negate all the rest.
That is what is called "All-or-Nothing" thinking.
A person is made up of many parts.
I have found that I can teach, write, paint, date, analyze people and events all I want to, all at once.
No, my current weakness is procrastination.
I've heard it called fear.
Fear of what?
Both failure and success, they say.
I'm not afraid.
It's not really so much that I procrastinate as it is that I am easily distracted from my goals. I tend to be obsessive. If it's the novel I'm working on, then that's all I do for days, forgetting to eat and losing all kinds of sleep.
Delayed gratification is still an issue, for I'd rather write, for example, than fill out one single more extensive online application for a petty job somewhere working outside my area of expertise for a salary that wouldn't keep a hole in the ground.
And yet one more pointless job pays the rent and keeps me living in that hole instead of on the street.
This is the week of job applications and home hunting.
Next week I must concentrate on packing for the home that I don't have that I can't have until I get the job that I don't have.
Right now I can either research more jobs or go to bed.

Response to Ferris State University's Vagina Monolouges

I just came back from seeing The Vagina Monologues again.
There is one statement that they open the show with that sticks with me tonight:
That, although women are at first very uncomfortable about the subject, once they open up it turns out that they love talking about their vaginas. It's a freeing thought, that maybe it's okay to have one and okay to talk about it. I mean, seriously - If you are a woman, it's a part of you.
Of course the great Mission of the show is to stop the silence surrounding domestic violence, but there's also a lot to be said for the overall sense of empowerment that it provides.

I laughed in recognition.

I cried in recognition.
I laughed and cried out of empathy and compassion.
I was inspired.
Frankly, I was actually kind of turned on. If I'd had a date tonight, it would have been a perilous thing. The show certainly makes you want to go out and do something!
Should I volunteer at the local women's shelter, or get laid? Hell, I can do both! It's my vagina.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was October and I was seven years old.

Our family was going to the school Halloween Party, back in the days when you didn’t have to claim it was a Harvest Party. My father had spent considerable time on a robot costume for my brother, who was now clumping around inside a box that was spray-painted silver with vacuum tubes sticking out of it – for arms, maybe. No Polaroid pictures exist, so I have to draw from my own spotty memory.

I had chosen to be a ghost. A ghost seemed like a powerful and scary idea, although the reality turned out to be two holes cut in an old bed sheet that rubbed my hair all around until it was static-charged and insisted on sticking into my eyes and getting sucked into my mouth. I was hot and tired before we’d even walked the few blocks to the school.

It was a grand party in the traditional sense – bobbing for apples with no mention of catching diseases from mouthing around in the same water as everyone else. I had to pull my costume off even to attempt this game, and was as disappointed by this as I would have been if my parents had made me wear a coat. What was the fun of being a ghost if everyone knew it was me? I was surprised at how difficult it was to actually clench a chunk of apple with my teeth. I’d make contact and then the apple would bob away from me. I tried repeatedly, until the closeness of the water made me fear drowning and I had to stop. I had similar difficulty with the apples dangling on strings from the ceiling. A volunteer tied my hands behind my back and I had to bite the apple and eat it from the string before my competitor. The apple bounced repeatedly off my face as I circled it like a puppy chasing its tail. Thump. Thump. Thump.

My brother won the costume contest that year. I remember being jealous. No one had spent any time at all on my costume, and it wasn’t as if he’d made that box himself.

I hid hotly beneath my sheet and scuffed along the sidewalk behind everyone, disturbing the crisp leaves. Enticed by the lit porches of the neighboring houses and joyful cries of “Trick-Or-Treat!” my brother and I begged Mom and Dad to let us get some candy. Kids in costumes were pushing past us to get to the houses. Mom and Dad were tired and didn’t feel like stopping anywhere on the way home. One of the jostling kids was the Bigger Boy who lived across the street from us. Gallantly, he offered to take us to a few houses along our route home.

This Bigger Boy was the one who organized all the neighborhood games – races, contests, soldiers, vampires, tag, colored eggs, hide-and-seek. He always told everyone what to do, everyone did it, and he was about as self-assured as anyone I had ever seen. People did what he wanted them to. I didn’t know what  bullying means.

As Mom and Dad wandered off up the street without us, we stopped at a couple of houses and yelled, “Trick or treat! Smell my feet! Give me something good to eat!”

The Bigger Boy – he seems in my memory to look about seventeen or eighteen – comes up with this brilliant Divide and Conquer Plan wherein we would each take a different side of the street – therefore getting twice as much candy. I was seven years old – I didn’t know the math. I didn’t stop and think to myself, “Wait a minute – If my brother goes on one side of the street, and I go with this Bigger Boy to the other side of the street, we will actually be getting half the candy we could be if we were all to go on all the sides of the street!” Nope – the Divide and Conquer Plan made perfect sense to me. What did not make sense was that the Bigger Boy didn’t take me to any houses across the street. Somehow we ended up in an abandoned parking lot next to an old brick building.

I remember the glass – those hexagon-shaped sparkles of broken windshields scattered across the cracks with weeds growing up out of them. Chunks of broken pavement. The roughness of the crumbling bricks in the wall. Heavy breathing. The pressure of the Bigger Boy’s hands against my shoulders, against my hip. The horrible, stomach-dropping feeling as he jerked up my sheet and pulled it against the wall until I was pinned there against it with my sneakers barely touching the gravel. How do those bits and eddies of gravel always collect outside old buildings? I could feel the tug of the elastic of my underwear as he thrust his hand down inside – inside, and  I had what I couldn’t describe except to say that it was yucky, a yucky feeling that scared me because it hurt and the more I struggled the tighter went the sheets.

I could hear my brother, not much older than me after all, calling us from across the street uncertainly. Where were we? He wanted to go home.

I wanted to go home. I told the Bigger Boy that I needed to go home. I think he told me to stop whining.

I became a ghost that night. Ghost-girl. It did not matter what I thought. It did not matter what I felt. It did not matter what I wanted. I couldn’t stop it. I was scared, but I physically could not get away. This was wrong. This was – this hurt. It hurt and I wanted to go home but I couldn’t get away. I did manage it, though, in a way. I went far far away inside my head someplace safe where nobody could find me. I don’t remember when we went back to my brother. I don’t remember when we came home. I think I ate a lot of candy, and it made me feel sick. The candy made me feel sick.

The next day, I told my mother what had happened. What I thought happened. Her reaction – I don’t remember her reaction but it scared me or embarrassed me because I hid behind the couch. I hid because I had told her. I told her, and I didn’t like it when she had to go and tell my father. I knew instinctively that he would be angry. And I didn’t know whether or not he was angry at me. I remember his face, red and screaming. I thought he was screaming at me. I remember the front door, wide open and swinging in his wake.

I was a ghost now. No one ever talked to me about what happened again. I didn’t talk about it. I didn’t want anyone to be angry. And I spent my entire childhood that way. I tried to go unnoticed. Don’t look at me – I’m not attractive. I’m not someone you want to get too close to. I’m not anything at all. I will hide inside myself, far far away inside my head someplace safe where nobody could ever hurt me, I thought. But they did. Someone always did. And no matter how much I wanted to get away, how much I wanted to stop it, I always felt trapped. Trapped. Alone and afraid. I couldn’t tell anyone. No one would understand. They would tell the wrong people, and someone would be mad at me, and for some reason the anger of others – especially of men – terrified me. Please don’t be mad at me. Please don’t hurt me. Please. Can’t you see that I’m scared? That I can’t find my way home?

My ex-husband was complaining recently about sex education and how they’re going to start “teaching masturbation in schools, starting as young as five years old!”

“Whatever,” I thought.

I mean, first of all: Masturbation is normal. For crying out loud, our own daughter had begun much younger than five. She found her vagina and for whatever reason had decided that it was a pretty cool place to explore. I remember one of the daycare ladies who watched the kids while we were at work came to me and asked me in shocked tones if I had any idea if our daughter had been molested. ‘ For pity’s sake,’ I thought, ‘You need to get educated!’

Secondly, it’s not like the agenda of the government (as he would claim) is to actually demonstrate or show videos of masturbation. They’re going to say things that are established facts – such as that it isn’t dirty and wrong and sinful. Such as that a lot of toddlers do it, and it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are wicked or have been molested. Maybe they’ll actually prevent some zealot-idiot parents from burning their children’s fingers as punishment for their so-called wickedness, for God’s sake.

I think I started masturbating when I was seven years old. In my case, I do think it was because I was molested. I was trying to figure out why the hell someone had wanted to touch me there so badly. I was surprised to find that it didn’t feel bad if I had control over it. After awhile, it got so that I couldn’t relax and sleep at night if I didn’t do it. Maybe there was something sick and sad about it – or maybe not. It is what it is.

What I do know, however, is that a little sex education could have gone a long way. I needed to know that I had a vagina, and I needed to know that someone else might want to have it for some reason. I can’t imagine how my parents, in that day and age, could have expressed this to me, but I say Thank God for The Vagina Monologues.  Thank God that someone somewhere decided to break the silence and speak up about what is happening in our society to women and little girls. Thank God that I do not have to be ashamed of my body anymore. Thank God that I am no longer anything like a ghost.

It took a long time for me to even see it: what I had become. I was a frightened little girl way past the actual ages of innocence. I got married too young because I thought somehow that then I would be safe from harm.

I found out that the sheets could still pin me down and that my mind and then my body would snap back to when I was seven years old – a powerless little girl who could not save herself. Ghost-girl. It did not matter what I thought. It did not matter what I felt. It did not matter what I wanted. I couldn’t stop it. I was scared, but I physically could not get away. This was wrong. This was – this hurt. It hurt and I wanted to go home but I couldn’t get away. I did manage it, though, in a way. I went far far away inside my head someplace safe where nobody could find me. I wanted someone to love me and to hold me, to be gentle and to be kind, to stop and think for just one moment that maybe they’d lost me somehow. To notice that I was scared and that I’d gone away from my body for a time because I didn’t know how else to feel safe.

My marriage became a horrible thing.

Maybe if my ex-husband had been a little more intelligent, a little more thoughtful, a little more patient or kind…

Maybe it was my fault. I tried to explain.

It became a ritual, a thing that happened once in awhile because he couldn’t resist the urge. He seemed to think that he should. After all, masturbation was an evil thing, an unspeakable thing. Truthfully, we never spoke about sex. It was something that happened sometimes. I was seldom present.

It’s funny. It’s funny because I couldn’t sleep without it. I couldn’t sleep. But if I were to touch myself, it was like cheating. It was wrong. It made him angry, and I couldn't handle anyone being angry with me. I wasn’t just a ghost – I became a ghost who could never relax and sleep.

I thought about these things tonight. I watched The Vagina Monologues and I thought about how ashamed I had been of my body all of those years. How I always thought I was too fat, too plain. Or, conversely, how I was too much. How, if I were to truly come out from under that sheet and be my full self, I would be rejected. I would be embarrassing. My thighs would be too fat, or the damage inflicted by the knife in my emergency C-section would be too hideous, or the varicose vein that I’ve had running down my right leg ever since I gave birth to my last child.

My last child. Because my ex-husband hadn’t even wanted two children, hadn’t wanted the last one – and I, pinned beneath that sheet, couldn’t speak up for myself and voice the opinion that I didn’t want to have any part of my body cut and cauterized, mutilated so that any other little children that I might ever have held in my arms were now dead before they’d ever had a chance to live. It was a grieving thing, to “get my tubes tied,” as if something inside of me had been murdered against my will. Nothing special. Just another piece of my heart.

I watched The Vagina Monologues tonight.
I laughed at the woman who complained about how angry her vagina was at all the mistreatment.
I cried at all the women who had been abused.
I smiled at the story of the woman who had a good experience with a man. I smiled at how he seemed to adore her body just the way it was, and what a relief that was to her. What a release.
I thought of somebody that I know, and I smiled. Because not all men are assholes, and it's nice to remember that sometimes, and nice that the show is not such a militantly feminist show that it doesn't recognize that.
I cheered when the men who ran the technical aspects of the show came out at the end - particularly one dedicated husband who had helped out with the Ferris State University productions of the Vagina Monologues for the entire ten years of the show. Because he loved his wife and his daughter, and he wanted to promote a better, safer world for them to live in.
I cheered at the women, all of the women, because they stood up and talked about what had happened to them and were not ashamed.