Feeling Vulnerable and Raw (Blog #116)

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Last night while I was working on the blog, Bonnie came back to the bungalow with doughnuts–Voodoo Doughnuts. I’d never had one before, but apparently they are a thing–creative packaging, filled with sugar, a great way to go up a pant size in less than twenty-four hours. But maybe the best part about them is that they are a little naughty–okay–a lot naughty. Their packaging is pink, and on the cover, along with a snake, is a magician with the words, “The magic is in the hole.” (Wow.) AND THEN it says, “Good things come in pink boxes.” (If you don’t get it, I’m not going to be the one to explain it to you. Especially you, Mom.)

So filthy–so funny–so tasty.

So that’s how today started, and I don’t mind saying that it’s gone downhill from there. I mean, Bonnie and I ate some delicious tacos before leaving Austin, and we listened to a lot of good music on the drive back to Arkansas today. But returning home after a great trip–to Austin of all places–can quite frankly blow. Let’s face it. Austin is where there’s live music, plenty of dancing, and amazing tacos. Van Buren, on the other hand, is where all my bills get delivered, the home of my bathroom scale, and the place where Mom has cancer. In short, there’s a lot of reality here.

Go away, reality, we don’t want your kind here.

I’m sure it doesn’t help that I’ve been extra tired this week and functioning on caffeine and sugar. Plus, I don’t mind saying that blogging every day about my emotions and internal life is–well–a real bitch at times. As if three years of therapy weren’t enough, now I’m personally journaling every day about what I think, feel, desire, and loathe, AND putting the highlight reel online for everyone to see. And I guess sometimes that leaves me feeling a bit vulnerable and raw, like what might happen if you had a scab that stretched from your face to your groin and intentionally ripped the whole thing off–you know–for fun. (Let’s start a blog and talk about our feelings!)

I don’t recommend it.

No, let’s eat doughnuts instead. And if you don’t think that will help, you can always take a pretzel and shove it in the heart of a one-eyed doughnut (that’s filled with red jelly) while pretending it’s everyone who’s ever 1) lied to you, 2) cheated on you, or 3) done you wrong.

When I got home tonight (about 1:30 in the morning), I went for a walk/jog to help clear my head, readjust. I’m not sure that it helped. But here’s something. My family has lived on this street for thirty years, and for as long as I can remember, situated between several houses and a local church, there’s been a patch of land that’s been a bit wild. From the road it’s looked like a bunch of overgrown trees, although sometimes it would get cut back, and maybe I remember seeing a cow or two back there. Whenever I would go for walks by there in the summers, there’d be a honeysuckle bush, and often I’d stop and smell it, even taste it.

Well, tonight as I walked by that plot of land, I thought something was different, but it took me a minute to figure it out. Y’all, the entire plot of land–maybe an acre or two of overgrown trees and honeysuckle–had been clearcut. (This is why I wouldn’t make a great detective.) It was just one big slab of dirt. Gone in the blink of an eye. Part of me was immediately sad–I’d gotten used to something being there, and now it was gone. Another part of me was delighted. Without the trees there, I could see all the stars shining through. There was all this–space. I wondered what would come along to fill it. There were so many–possibilities.

Sometimes I look at the way my life was before, and I miss it. On days like today when I’m wiped out and emotional, it’s easy to tell myself that life was better when I had a steady job, lived on my own, and every summer the honeysuckle bloomed in the same spot. Looking at my life now feels like looking at that empty plot of land–oh crap, where did everything go?  Again, it’s vulnerable and raw, in every way exposed. But at the same time, I can see stars I haven’t seen in years, and who knows who or what will come along, who knows what dreams may come.

There’s a poem by Robert Frost that says, “We dance round in a ring and suppose, but the Secret sits in the middle and knows.” What this means to me today is that it’s easy to look at the physical pieces of your life and think–that’s it–this blows. It’s easy to get caught up in what you can see, taste, and touch. But it’s the unseen dimension, I think, that gives the most shape to our lives. This is, of course, where divine wisdom lives, along with possibility. To be a little naughty, the magic is you know where. Additionally, it’s the holes or the spaces in our lives that give us room to breathe and room to rest in, room to contain both good and bad days, and–when the time is right–room for something else to come along.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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We think of hope as something pristine, but hope is haggard like we are.

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Energetic Vampires (Blog #73)

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The week I started this website, I was out for a walk and took the above photo. If for some reason you can’t see it, it’s a road sign that says Dead End. I thought surely I could work it into a post about where I felt my life was headed, or maybe one about a number of relationships I’ve been in. However, tonight I’m using it mainly because I’m not sure where this post is going, I need a picture to use, and I’m tired of taking selfies. Hard to believe, I know. Don’t worry, I’m sure it’s just a phase–like being gay. (One time I actually had a former student say this about my sexuality TO MY BOYFRIEND. It didn’t bless me.)

This afternoon I watched a movie called From Dusk Till Dawn starring George Clooney and Quentin Tarantino. One of my dearest friends recommended it, and if he were here right this moment, I’d tell him exactly what The Good Fairy told Little Bunny Foo Foo–I’ll give you three more chances. (Warning: If you haven’t seen the film, I’m about to spoil the plot for you.)

The movie is about two brothers, bank robbers, and murderers (George and Quentin) who are running from the law and kidnap a former priest and his two children, using the family’s RV to escape to Mexico. Once there, they go to titty bar to hand off some of the stolen money, and then SHIT GETS WEIRD, meaning almost everyone turns into vampires.

Vampires.

If you didn’t see that coming, I didn’t either. I kept staring at the screen wondering if I’d accidentally changed channels, but I hadn’t. Well, the rest of the film is everyone killing everyone else–daylight, crosses, lot of wooden stakes to the heart–the usual vampire stuff. Only George and one of the children survive. And that’s the end.

What the hell?

It was like–SURPRISE!–in the worst possible way.

I messaged my friend and said as much, and he said he LOVED the dramatic plot twist. But here’s my problem. There’s a concept in writing called “the contract with the reader,” which says that by the end of the first paragraph or chapter, it should be clear what the story is about. Early on, the reader (or viewer) should be able to say, “Oh, this is a story about an orphan,” or “This is a story about a prostitute who falls in love with a millionaire.” And then, knowing what you’re getting yourself into, you should be able to sit back, relax, and watch the story unfold and the characters develop.

But From Dusk Till Dawn effectively pulled a bait and switch, promising a movie about two guys running from the law, possibly about a former priest and why he lost his faith, but delivering a vampire flick instead. It was like–SURPRISE!–in the worst possible way. I’ve spent the entire evening trying to find something, anything, redeeming about the film, but I’ve got nothing. No one changes or learns anything, and there’s no happy ending other than the fact that the surviving kid gets the RV and George gets five percent off the money he owes the guy he was meeting at the titty bar. (Come on, make it ten. My brother turned into a vampire, and I had to kill him. It’s been a rough day.)

I realize this is becoming somewhat of a rant, so I’m going to wrap up my dissatisfaction with this film by saying that I get it. Things don’t always turn out like you think they’re going to. Life is full of surprises. Sometimes you waste two hours of you life on a bad movie.

But I’d hate for the film and this blog post to be a complete waste, so I’d like to talk a little bit about vampires. Believe it or not, vampires are discussed in a lot in self-help material and even in therapy. Apparently, vampires are real, not in the blood-sucking sense, but in the energy-sucking sense. You know those friends you always walk away from feeling drained–the ones who monopolize the conversation, complain all the time, take-take-take and never give? Those are vampires. I mean, they’re not bad people–we all do it from time to time, probably not on purpose–but they’re certainly not healthy to have hanging around your living room or favorite titty bar either.

To be clear, if you have a friend who’s a vampire, I’m not suggesting you put a wooden stake through their heart. I doubt wearing a cross would do any good. But do try something. In my experience, the answer is almost always a good solid boundary. In the case of the former student who challenged my sexuality to my boyfriend, there were a lot of instances in which they’d get jealous or upset if my attention went anywhere other than in their direction. They’d say, “Well you’ve danced with her three times but me only once.”

Talk about sucking the life out of you.

We had a number of conversations about everything going on, and I eventually asked the person to leave. In essence, I whipped out the holy water and said, “That’s enough. I’m taking my life back.” My therapist says that when dealing with vampires, boundaries don’t always have to be so dramatic. She says that sometimes the people who drain us are people we really care about. Maybe they’re family. In those cases, she says that we can “gear down,” go from talking to them every day to a couple of times a week.

Honestly, I think the people in our lives should be like a well-written story. We should be able to know what they’re about pretty early on. We should be able to say, “Here’s a person who needs a lot of attention,” or “Here’s someone who’s a good listener and is always trying to help.” Of course, people change and lives are complicated, but if someone initially presents themselves as one thing and later there’s a big plot twist–oh shit, he’s a vampire!–well, Houston, we have a problem. Reach for your crosses.

In my experience, some relationships, especially ones with vampires, are dead ends. Period. But my therapist says, “Life is long,” so I like to leave room for the idea that anyone or any relationship can circle back around. Plus, we all go through times when we’re more needy than others. But over the last few years, I’ve consciously chosen to spend more and more of my time on roads that are going somewhere, traveling with people who give life more than they take it. As Robert Frost says, that has made all the difference.