How to Live (and Wear) a Feme Sole Thanksgiving

Now that our grandparents and mother are dead, Thanksgiving is a lot different. A lot quieter, and so, a little weirder. For literally decades, we would gather at my grandparents' overheated, tiny house, which was filled to bursting with family, partners, friends, and orphans. Our increasingly deaf grandparents would blare Judge Judy and sportsball and the Macy's Day Parade; my grandmother and mother would holler at Eldest to add more broth to the stuffing, soupiness be damned. But as the years marched on, and people divorced and moved away and died, our numbers dwindled. And now, for the first time in 31 years, we aren't having dinner at the grandparents' house. That house stands silent and mostly empty and thoroughly abandoned, patiently waiting for a realtor to march people through and choose to buy it so they can have their own decades of family dinners there. And those few who remain--my sisters and partners, all childless, and myself--now gather in my sister's kitchen to break bread, give thanks, and all the rest.

This is also my first Thanksgiving as an officially divorced woman--a feme sole. This is what my beloved Oxford English Dictionary has to say about this:

feme sole, n.
Origin: A borrowing from French. Etymon: French feme sole. Law French feme sole, femme sole unmarried woman (1302 or earlier in Anglo-Norman) < feme , femme feme n. + sole soleadj. Compare post-classical Latin femina sola (1396 in a British source, in legal context). 

An unmarried woman; (sometimes) spec. one who is divorced or widowed. Also in the English and other common law legal systems: a married woman whose legal status, esp. with regard to her right to own property or to carry on a business, is that of an unmarried woman.

In other words? Fuck yes. It's funny, I was so uncomfortable in my 20s about being single, unpartnered, unclaimed, yet I had to become all those things to become comfortable with not being those things. And so now I wear this title with pride and joy and relief; it was a hell of a long road to get here, both legally and emotionally, and now that I am here, I am pretty ready to dig in, put down roots, and look down at all you other chumps with some smugness. Just kidding. Kind of.

I'm having a damned good Thanksgiving, despite the lack of family, and because of my feme sole state. Here's how I do it:

I decide I'm going to look good--look damned good. Wash my hair dammit, and choose an outfit that gets me a lot of compliments even if I think secretly it makes me look pregnant. (I'm not, and thankfully never will be.) I wear it with my best smile.

 Tunic from Rue 21; leggings from Meijer's because omg I wear leggings now!

I put on as much makeup as I want. Here's my view on makeup--it conceals what doesn't need to be seen and enhances what should be seen. It helps make me be the most radiant me that I want to be.

Couples at family holiday dinners are happily inevitable. When I was younger and the single odd duck, I felt self-conscious, unpaired, unloved. I'm older now, and now it doesn't bother me one jot, and if you're single, I hope it won't bother you either. The (let's hope) happiness of the couples at family gatherings are not a reflection on us single folk; not an indication of some sort of fatal flaw, and we can make our own happiness and freedom without a partner by our sides. And as I learned through my own bitter experiences, having a partner at your side at a family dinner is no indication of a satisfied, secure existence. I smile and laugh and talk and joke with the couples, admire the camaraderie that they share, and then I carry on being me.

I adhere to family traditions. With my people, this consists of

• Eldest Sister slaves away in the kitchen, as she has done since Time Immemorial (she is now both the Matriarch and the Martyr of the Family) 

• Middle Sister sits on the couch and peruses the Black Friday ads (although we aren't dummies, we don't go out into that brouhaha) 

• The Little Odd Duck stays as much out of the way as possible and watches X-Files. This is a tradition that stems back to my teens, when I worked at a toy store and had to be to work at 3 AM the day after Thanksgiving, literally ducking toys flying overhead, so during Turkey Day I would hunker down, rest up, eat food, and drool over Scully. 

 Me, Pre-Drool

• Occasionally I holler at Eldest Sister to add more broth to the stuffing. I don't care about stuffing, but it's what our mom and grandmother did. And what was good enough for them is good enough for us, dammit. 

So there we go--how I lived my  2017 Thanksgiving. It was chill but not chilly, lovely and cozy and filled with laughter and memories of people and days gone by. I lived it genuinely, as I have tried to do every day since taking the leap into Life After Marriage--as a sister, a friend, the Indy Grrl, the Odd Duck, Crazy Aunt Mel, and feme sole. It's a good life, and it's one I am grateful I had the courage to grab on to.

You Say Self-Care, I Say Survival

Since The Great Shitshow of 2016, there's been a lot of talk in the world about self-care. This concept differs wildly from person to person--for some folks, it's taking a day to apply a $75 squid jizz mask, eat a vegan concoction of rhubarb and kale and chickpea innards, and meditate for three hours. For other folks, it's getting a mani-pedi, shopping at Kate Spade and Kendra Scott and Sephora, and then eating a leisurely lobster dinner. And then there are some folks that just take that time to do basic "I should do this every day but don't because I suck at adulting" shit. With poptarts. And wine.

Guess which category The Indy Grrl falls in?

Towards the end of my workweek last week,  I realized that I had an opportunity to clear my schedule and hunker down for the weekend. (My brilliant Eldest Sister calls this a Fuck Off World! Weekend, which I think is the most accurate, if not kindest, description.) And it was perfect timing--we were supposed to get rain all weekend. So that's what I did--promised myself 36 hours of "self care" and went so far as to commit to it on my planner, stocked up with some food essentials, and disappeared from the world.

Here's what these adventures in self-care looked like:

Gently Moving, Saturday Afternoon:
Usually I feel like I am constantly going-going-going, with half of my mind on the task at hand and half my mind scanning the horizon for the next thing to get done. Mindfulness, schmindfulness. But as I am coming home from the grocery store on Saturday afternoon, the brilliant scarlets and orange leaves against the stormy sky outside my apartment building catch my eye. With nowhere that I HAVE to be now, it seems like a perfect time to take an amble. 

Sleeping In and Having a Lazy Morning
The women in my family have several endearing talents; chief amongst them is our ability to sleep and sleep and sleep. And then sleep some more. As you can imagine, having to adhere to a schedule of...well, waking up at designated times really puts a cramp in our style. So any chance we have to not bow down and submit to the cruel mistress of our cell phone alarms, you can be damned sure we are grabbing it. So I've done just that, letting my body wake up on its own, natural-like. Amazingly, I manage to wake up at 9, but any smugness I feel is quickly banished when I realize that I'd forgotten that daylight savings time had ended, we had "fallen back" during the night, and my body feels like it's 10 a.m. No matter. I shrug it off, fix some coffee, light a candle, and creep back into bed for a couple of hours of YouTube and Interneting. 

A Little Bit of Productivity
My Eldest Sister believes that the ideal weekend includes a lot of puttering, in which nothing really gets accomplished, so she would be appalled at my approach. But I've got my own roll--my idea of a pampering weekend is one in which a LOT of stuff is accomplished, but none of it feels like work. Nothing too strenuous, but part of self-care is doing something to feel like your home is a haven and not a shithole. And so I clean for a bit, fold some laundry, do some dishes, change the sheets...with the help of my furry feline fuckers. 

Some Entertainment

So books! Much words! 


Pampering/Treat Yo'Self
I don't have a lot of fancy facial stuff on hand (alas--no squid jizz!) but there is some e.l.f. stuff I've been wanting to try, so today I took the plunge and used them. I wouldn't say my face felt transformed, but it did feel nice. 

Another treat--Brie, and some out-of-season-yet-still delicious berries. 

Not Dying
It's November here in the Heartland, and it's second storm season. Halfway through my Self-Care Day, the sky darkens, the atmosphere grows still, my phone buzzes with an emergency alert from the county, and the "torny warnies" start warbling their weird, wild wails. My housemate and I round up the disgruntled feline fuckers, as well as some wine and other boozy companions, and hunker down into the tiny little half-bath. 

Four hours later, second verse, same as the first. 

Fortunately, any tornadic activity went to the place known as Not Here. Nonetheless--at one point, I grouse to the Housemate, "This is NOT how I wanted this Self-Care Day to go!"

To which she responds, not inaccurately, "Survival is self-care."

You say self-care, I say survival. 

It's too bad that we have to take time to set aside, specially, for self-care. In a perfect world, it's part of our daily routine. In a perfect world, we don't have to clear our schedule for a day of it. In a perfect world...is not the world we live in. The world I live in is chaotic and busy and I am a flawed inhabitant of this world, but I survive it as best I can. I could do better, I could do worse. But I have to move through this world believing that I deserve to treat myself to some kindness, to some survival, to some quality of life. I invite you to do the same. To take care of others, we gots to take care of ourselves first. 

Chasing my Happy: The Winter Weirdness Edition

My happy isn't your happy, and that's okay. There's enough to go around.

In the early morning hours, I reluctantly slipped out from underneath my covers--disturbing the furry feline fuckers in the process--and padded over to my window. Was I seeing snow? It was hard to say for certain; darkness still enveloped everything, and my bleary eyes weren't aided by glasses. And really, what did it matter? If it was, in fact, snowing, well, chances were I'd have plenty more opportunities to see it. So I padded back to my toasty bed and burrowed back underneath the covers, and the furry feline fuckers quickly forgave me.

When I woke up for good, a couple of hours later, I quickly realized something pretty darned cool (heh, literally):

It's November 1, and here in the hoosiery hills of Southern Indiana, we've had our first snowfall of the season.

It didn't last, of course. But what did last was the wet, gloomy, cold weather that brought us the snow to begin with. All day, the temperature has hovered in the low forties, and there's been absolutely no sun. If I'm being honest, I'll admit that I've been vaguely cold, all day. And it doesn't bug me, not in the slightest. In fact, I am relishing that warm feeling that I'll finally chase down to earth later this evening, when I am in bed once again, and the furry feline fuckers are trying to get as close to me as possible. I've learned that when you achieve a penetrating warmth after a prolonged chill, it's a beautiful, almost sensual thing, an incredible feeling.

I might not always feel like this. Maybe some day, I will resent this place and dread the winters as I once resented California and dreaded...well, all the seasons. But right now, I am just happy to be happy with these cold, grey mornings and evenings, these bare trees, these empty, hollow nights. Even looking up at the picture above, at that grey sky over the rooftops, makes me happy. And not in a "gloom and death and badness and everyone is miserable!" sort of way, but in a "I love the sight of that grey sky and all the cozy homes and people tucked safe away" sort of way. 

Not any one thing is going to make everyone happy. And my way of happiness seems to be distinctly different from most other folks. Folks don't need to get why this cold, empty, gloomy weather makes me happy (which is good, since I don't get why, myself); it's enough that I knew enough to chase that happiness, and that it brought me here. And that I didn't get any frostbite in the process.

...Ready for it

Today, I've been a bit confused.

The calendar says it's Halloween. So too do the dishes of candy and chocolates, scattered about work, and all of the wee buggers, trotting about in their various costumes. But when I step outside, what I think is, "MERRY CHRISTMAS!"

As much as I love this place, I can't deny the fact that most of my life has been spent in warm climates. 19 years in Florida, most Halloweens being gross and humid. 9 years in California, most Halloweens being toasty and "oh it's a dry heat" and still feeling like hell. So when I step outside on Halloween morn, and see that my windshield is coated in a layer of ice, and realize that my long wool coat might not be enough to withstand the morning's chill...I'm a little con-fuddled. My body, my personal history, they tell me it's Christmas, even though my life now tells me, "Happy Halloweenie!"

(It's also worth mentioning that we are forecasted to get a wintry mix of precipitation late tonight. YAAAAAAAAAS.)

What I've noticed is that October tends to be a pretty busy time for me--even without the job and two side-hustles I've got going on right now. I'd love to say that I read a dozen books and cooked some amazing meals and crafted some lovely creations and so on, but that's just not the case. I do my work--buying media (we are at the end of the spending cycle), teaching my class, doing a bit of caregiving for my former boss. I socialize with my aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Indiana and their son, and a few other friends. I pursue some fall adventures, like watching scary movies and frolicking in a picked-over orchard. I scold the cats and watch "The West Wing" and think about simpler presidencies, and I try to enjoy the fall as it creeps in.

I attend an utterly magical play with my D'uncle, and remember the line, "It's supposed to hurt...that's how you know it meant something."

I laugh with my friends, and try to focus on the day at hand, and not look back too much on past Octobers, or worry too much about Octobers ahead. I love the thought of homes, cozy and welcoming in the darkening nights; I turn my collar up and face the cold. Some folks believe that Halloween is the witch's New Year, and while I haven't been witchy-poo enough in a long time to adhere to that, a very big part of me hopes that this Halloween is a new year, and that the various shit--physical sickness, political insanity, personal betrayals and disappointments--that have sprung up since last October are now drawing to their close. We will see.

But I gotta admit...I'm ready for it.

On Being Alive

This might be my favorite time of the year,  these early days of autumn. The mornings and evenings are cool--a couple of times, now, they've even been chilly--but days are still warm. And yet...the late afternoon sunlight is a particularly brilliant yet gentle golden, as though it's apologizing for the harsh summer months and trying to encourage us to soak up what little warmth remains before winter sets in. The crickets still chirp at night; not the loud clamor of high summer, and rather fewer of them, but they are still their, making their noises quietly and persistently as though saying, "We will continue our song until the bitter end."

It's a beautiful early fall evening right now, and I am reminded of a fall evening from my very early years. It must be one of my very first memories--I was three, or perhaps four. We were still living in Ohio. My mom was getting me ready for bed, and insisting I wear an undershirt under my nightgown because the nights were getting cooler. I remember looking over her shoulder at the open window in my bedroom, seeing the dark night beyond my cozy little world, feeling the chill night air, knowing she was right.

It's a beautiful fall evening right now, and for me at least, it is a beautiful day to be alive. And oh, how rotten I feel, thinking that. At least 59 people are no longer here to enjoy life on this peaceful evening. Their lives ended yesterday, their peace shattered. I wish that I could believe that they have never-ending peace, now, but I don't have any certainty of that. I know that we who are left have even less peace and security than we had before (and really, those were and are only illusions), and I know that many of us sit in our homes, and look out our open windows into the chilly autumn evening, and know that it's a dark night that lies beyond our cozy little world. And not all of us have the privilege of a cozy little world.

I'm sad, I'm distressed, I'm exhausted. I imagine most of us are--and probably for a lot longer than just the last 24 hours. I don't know what to do; I only know that I can close my eyes against this gentle autumn night and wake tomorrow and rise and meet the day with a desire to act with courage and a strong moral compass and compassion. Maybe that's all I can do. Maybe that's all any of us can do. Or maybe that that is the bare frickin minimum.

May we all retire to our beds tonight, safe and loved. May we all wake tomorrow to wrest whatever beauty we can from this chaotic world. May we all survive to see another beautiful autumn evening tomorrow. And may we rest our heads tomorrow night knowing we did all we personally could to set this world to rights.

Another Homecoming

Well and so! Another August--my second one back here in Bloomington--draws to a close. Other than a few brutally hot days, it's been unusually mild and dry, and while I'm no expert when it comes to leaf science (is that a thing?), I wonder if this weather has anything to do with the red and orange pops of color that are already here in the trees.

With the end of August comes the inevitable return of the students. And here is a rather unexpected development--the students are not the only ones returning to Indiana University. I am, too.

Two weeks ago, I stood before a class of library science students. Eleven and twelve and thirteen years ago, I had been one of those students, sitting in that same classroom, prepared to absorb the information my instructors were about to impart. Now, I am one of those instructors, teaching Collection Development. Strange to think that I'm now a little bit of an expert, at least in terms of having over a decade of professional, practical public library experience, which is apparently a marketable commodity.

So. It seems I've come home, in every sense of the word.

The basement halls and lockers around which  I and my friends and fellow students hung around now echo--other students cluster around them, of course, but all of my people--even the most of the professors I knew--have shuffled on to other things--other jobs, retirement, even death. Now, down these halls I walk, an almost middle-aged woman, missing those who populated my youth.  I try to hold myself rather accountable--"I'm not chasing some lost youth or fanciful second chance, am I?"  But still, I'm simply grateful to be here once more. It's another way to be useful and occupied and to try and lead a life of significance, if not success.

And I now have a solid reason to spend time on this beautiful campus, observing the lively, hopeful students, being challenged intellectually and professionally, roaming the stacks of the Wells Library.

Here, at least, things have not changed. These books, also my friends, have not left. They greet me, as they greet all, with a studied, passive indifference, but they accept me. They are steady, and change only as much as the people who read them (or revise them) change and project their own thoughts and interpretations onto the texts.

Most comforting of all: the campus, while now boasting of old buildings with sometimes-new names, and a few new buildings and cosmetic features, hasn't changed much either. It's still lush and green and a little bit abandoned in high summer, a little bit burnt-brown and a lot crowded in the late summer, but the land endures. The thoughts and personalities and hopes and sadnesses and worries and insouciant joys of thousands of students seep their way into the trees, the paths, the soil, becoming part of the story of our university, becoming the stories that nobody hears, but that endure nonetheless. A dozen years ago, I was one of those students, and my story became part of the university. Now I'm back to write another chapter.  

Here it is, in early August. 2017 marches onward, slowly and reluctantly relinquishing its grasp. It's been rather obnoxiously hot outside, but that's the nature of summer, and now, during my second summer Back Home, I still don't feel depressed and angry and frustrated the way I did in the deserts. Here, summer is a thing that happens to us, that blesses us for our endurance of the winter, that stays for the proper amount of time and then cedes its position of authority to Fleeting Fall. It's all very right and proper feeling.

The fireflies seem to have faded away (possibly?) but the crickets and the cicadas and the frogs are racheting up their song, and it's impossible to feel lonely in the night, as I sit out on the balcony and listen to their chorus. The wildflowers (or are they weeds?) are blossoming in every bit of uncultivated land, and although I can only identify one, Queen Anne's Lace, I still admire the yellows, oranges, purples, and whites of the other anonymous flora. One of these days, I'll acquire a book on Indiana wildflowers and learn a thing or two about a thing or two, but for now, I am content to simply enjoy the fact that I live in a place where flowers bloom without the intervention of man.

July was a good month. I was quite prepared to love it because I viewed it as something of a "new year"...or new "half year", really. And July, despite being as hot as balls, obliged, and I managed to get through the month more or less unscathed.

Possibly because I spent a good part of the month holed up in my bedroom, reading. Back in June, I re-discovered a historical fiction series that I rather love, and because I work at an incredibly awesome library that carries all approximately 245,631 books in the series, I hunkered down in my bed, drew the blinds, and spent many an evening ignoring any adult obligations in pursuit of the oblivion that comes when reading engrossing, highly-detailed novels set in 1400s-1900s England, in which the compelling characters indulge in mercifully little bodice ripping.

Because bodice-ripping? At this point in my life?

Other than reading, and working, and hiding out from the sunlight, I did manage to get out a little bit. Middle Sister and her husband drove out to see me (this is now the ninth time I've seen them in the 16 months since I've been home!) and we took a lovely jaunt over to Cincinnati. It's rather absurd to me that I was born there, and yet I hardly ever manage to get over there. It was only in 2015--30 years after I had left--that I managed to make make my way back. Fortunately, Middle Sister loves it there, and it's becoming something of a tradition for us to make a pilgrimage there--to eat Cincinnati Skyline Chili Cheese Coneys...

(and fortunately not suffer from cheese-coney-induced death)

To visit our childhood homes...

(One of which now appears to be the site of a fairy garden on meth) 

To eat more food that is slightly more classy than Cheese Coneys...

And to just enjoy this remarkable, beautiful city which feels so strange to us, and yet, if our lives had gone somewhat differently, which could have still been home. Would have never felt alien, would never have looked foreign, because it would have been familiar. Instead, it's a foreign-feeling place (although I think that has to do at least somewhat with the many German and Irish influences in the architecture and food) that bewitches and intrigues us, perhaps mostly for roads not taken. 

It's odd to think of this city being our birthplace. It's odd to think that our family spent a significant period of time here, and yet their mark--if ever there was one--has been erased. The voices of the people who raised us, who saw and knew us at our most young and vulnerable, have been silenced by time and and rejection and death brought on by hard living or just living too damned long.  The only thing that remains are echoes of memories that are fuzzy even to my sisters and myself. The restaurants and stores we remember shuttered their doors years ago. The hospital where I was born closed, even. The elementary school that my sisters attended has changed names, and judging by the exterior, it might not even be the same damned structure. The houses we grew up in have been gutted at best and turned into a fairy-garden meth-lab, at worst. 

Ah well. The past is a foreign country...they speak a different language there, etc. etc. Although, some nights, I feel like the present is a foreign country to me, too, and that I am speaking a language that, hell, is based on an entirely unknown alphabet that only I know. But that's a different thing to ponder, on a different night. 

Thank you, July, for not kicking my ass. Thank you for the good books and the good family and the good food and the warm nights and the days that, while hot, were still not something that would kill me. Thank you, July, for being a quietly, peacefully solid start to the second half of this year, which so fat is going far better than the first half. 

It's not yet even the beginning of summer, but here in the Heartland, we haven't really gotten that memo. The last few days have been wretchedly hot, and up until yesterday, the sunlight has been relentless too. But today, the heat and humidity hit that perfect combination, and late in the afternoon, the clouds piled up in the sky, the wind picked up, the rain poured down, and we got a little bit of a respite. After spending a lazy evening on my friend's porch (and seriously, is there anything more Hoosier than porch-sitting?) I made my way home, driving over rain-slicked asphalt that was still steaming. Fireflies lit up the dusky evening, undeterred by the recent storm, and in the distance, more storm clouds gathered.

Yet oddly, in my own life, there are no clouds on the horizon. And let me tell you, that's a strange sensation, to lift my head up and sense no incipient troubles. It's been a minute since that's been the case...really, the past six months, since November, have been... a relentless clusterfuck. First I was sick. And then that horrible shitshow of an election. And then more sick. And then the holidays. And then more sick. And then my Mawga passing away. And then moving and all of its attendant stress. And then more sick. And then getting trifled with by a very nasty creep. I'd still be reeling from one or two things when the next salvo would bombard me.

Things have settled down. The boxes are unpacked. Thoughts of my grandmother are never far, but they are thoughts of love, and not sorrow. My health is restored...ish. Our country is still a hot mess, but at least we have recovered from that shock.

Life is peaceful and busy and happy, at least for this moment in time. Which, really, is the only moment we have. "Ebbs and flows," Middle Sister says, with the sagacity of one who is a fellow veteran in the never-ending battle against those savage siblings, depression and anxiety. And she's right. I won't always have good days, but today was one of them, and that is a triumph that I will take to bed with me, as the storm rages outside, and the peace settles inside.

Broken Into Better Shape

About a month back, I tried to do a thing.

That thing involved trying be vulnerable, and willing to try to trust someone, in a way that I hadn't done in nearly a decade. It was terrifying and exciting and there were about 5,309,568 times when I almost nope'd out of trying.

And as it turned out, that thing didn't end well. Blew up in my face, spectacularly. The person who I had been trying to trust actually turned out to be a rather cruel, creepy person who did a cruel, creepy thing that thoroughly violated the trust I had been trying to build. And to be left with that, after making the deliberate decision  to push myself out of my comfort zone, to put myself at risk...to be left with that, and with no pay-off but a bitter lesson of Look what happens when you try...see where it gets you...you should have listened to all your anxieties that told you this would happen...well, it wasn't pleasant. At the end of the experience, I was left feeling utterly tricked, misled, and with an unpleasant feeling that I was nothing more than an unworthy bag of damaged, flawed goods.

Well, time does its thing, and so too does the support and love of the family and friends who, as always, have rallied around me and tried to help me see that the flaw was not with me, but rather the person who violated my trust. Nonetheless, there is the lingering, bitter aftertaste of regret, and the useless vision of hindsight, and they have been weighing down upon me. I really didn't need this new crack on my already fractured spirit, acquired in this particular way.

But...we keep on keepin' on.

This last weekend I spent with my friend Jain up in Indy. It was a lovely weekend, and on a sunny Saturday afternoon, as we shared plates of hipster, locally-sourced food, Jain mentioned to me something called kintsugi.

"It's something the Japanese do. It's a type of pottery repair," she explained in her low, soothing voice. (How does she do that? I love her voice.) "The idea is that they repair a piece of crockery with gold or silver laquer, and the cracks aren't hidden, but are visible. And the breakage, and the cracks, become part of the story of the object. They become part of its beauty and function."

Source: Lakeside Pottery

At the time, it probably really seemed like I wasn't paying attention, but I was. It really stuck with me through the rest of the weekend, and it's still on my mind now. It's a beautiful concept, especially when we apply the concept as a metaphor to our life journeys and the sorrows, traumas, and betrayals we endure. This Huffington Post article does a splendid job of summing it up.

This thing that I tried, the unpleasantness that resulted...I still don't know why it had to happen to me. Perhaps it didn't, and I was simply a fool to allow it, and that's the end of it. But nonetheless, it did happen, and it caused another crack to form in my spirit. It was a small crack, given how brief the whole experience was, but significant, given its timing and the effort and courage I put into pushing myself, when all I wanted to do was hide and listen to my fears. I'm not going to pretend tha the crack isn't there. It's part of my story now. Just like all the other disappointments and sacrifices and joys and hopes that I've endured are part of my story. I'm repairing this crack, yes, and the me that will emerge from it will have another few lines of gold where the repairs are. But it doesn't mean I'm damaged goods. I wasn't before this happened, and I'm not now.

I'm whole.

I'm broken into better shape.

Finding Home

"You can follow your job, or your family, you can follow your heart
You can wander, and wonder, and end up right back at the start
It may take a month, or a year, or a lifetime to know,
You may think you've arrived, and you realize, it's time to go..."

-Tim Grimm

On a recent Saturday night, I found myself driving down a lonely stretch of country road, heading out to a friend's party barn. The darkness pressed in on all sides, and I slowed down, as much to avoid hitting any suicidal deer as to enjoy the balmy night. I turned down the radio to better hear the crickets, and I absently marveled at how insanely my life has changed. 2 years ago, I would have been driving down a populated California road, passing a few palm trees lit up by the brutal sun, finding a way to avoid all the many people I disliked and distrusted. Now...well, I was driving to a party barn, for chrissakes.

A couple of months ago, my one-year Indianaversary flew past. I was too caught up in moving establishments to really note or celebrate it in any way, but it was--and is--on my mind, how that year has passed. How I settled in and adapted. How I've made this my life, on my terms. How little I missed California, then or now. How much I love it here. How I still feel like seasons, and how rapidly yet predictably they shift, are a kind of magic. How I feel at home here in a way that I've never felt anywhere else, and how the simple beauty of a green field calms me in a way very few other things can. How I pass by old barns and forests and think about my grandfather growing up, and wondering what his life was like. How I drive through Indy and fall a little more in love with it each time I go. How I enjoy the kind company of my colleagues and the undemanding trust of my boss. How lucky I've been, and how lucky I continue to be, with most of the people I've met and the friends I've made. How right it feels to be here, and how peaceful I feel, just driving down a country road.

Is this my forever home, here in Bloomington? I know enough of the nature of life now to know not to count on anything, or assume something is set in stone. I love it for now. I love Indiana forever. I don't know what's going to happen past the next year or two, but for now, this is good enough for me. This is home.

Five Words

Vacations are lovely things. They are a perfect time to do nothing or everything, just as you please, to eat all the things or skip all the meals, to read a stack of books or gaze blankly into space, to catch up with friends or ignore texts sent by obnoxious creeps, to be alone or go to all the parties, or to gaze at your navel or expose it to the sun as you drink a margarita by the pool. They are a perfect time to run away and escape on your 37th birthday when you don't want to do anything but you don't want to do nothing, either.

I plan to do all of those things in the next few days, but for the moment, I am content to lay in bed and do not much of anything. In this moment, that entails catching up with Eldest's formidable body of online literary works. But alack! Almost as soon as I started reading, I stumbled across a phrase that just stuck with me. It's blunt and yet a little harsh, like I am, and it's succinct, which I most decidedly am not, and I love it to bits. 

Living your own goddamn story. 

It's a little like the statement "living your life on your own terms" but a little bit more bold, a little more uncompromising. Both of which I need to be more of in my life. 

It's hard to do, sometimes, especially when your story gets caught up in someone else's. It's hard to do when other people don't seem to like your story. It's hard to do when the plot hits lulls or snags. It's hard to do when you're not quite sure the story is going the way you want. 

Living your own goddamn story. 

Living purposefully, deliberately, proudly. Making conscious choices, being proactive rather than reactive. Walking away when shit gets fucked up (I've gotten good at that.) Actually, no, not just walking away--walking away with that purposeful stride that somehow makes my entire body bounce and jiggle. (And then owning that I have a stride that does that.) I guess it's owning all the parts of the story, and choosing how I tell it. 

I can't choose the ending of the story--the when or how or inevitability of death, but I can choose how to get to that end. I can't choose the incidental events or the minor bit players, but I can choose the characters and the major plotlines and the setting and the moods and the themes. 

Living your own goddamn story. Here's to me learning more, day by day, how to do that. Here's to me perfecting the art of choosing the right characters, and to actively knowing where and how I want things to go, and owning the mistakes and triumphs. Here's to my 37th year on this chaotic, fragile rock, and to making it uniquely mine. 

On the Edge, and At the Bottom

The adventure through the Yucatan wilderness had been fun. Under the blazing sun, in the humid, cloying heat, we explored temples, drove through the jungle, fondled boa constrictors. Now we stood at the edge of a 30-foot cliff and gazed down at the beautiful, deep waters of the cenote and thought of plunging into them. We were hot and sweaty and exhausted and there was no way we weren’t going in, because the other option was simply to, well, melt to death. The staircase leading down to them would take a few minutes to clamber down, or…

“Okay!” joked the tour guide. “Who’s brave enough to be the first sacrifice to the Mayan gods?”

“Where’s Mel?” asked my recently-wedded husband.

Splash.

Later, my husband and I gazed in equal parts awe and dismay at the bruise that was forming on my backside. Perhaps a cannonball wasn’t the best diving position for an impulsive, bottom-heavy woman to take when jumping off a cliff. Of course, it was perfectly emblematic of the type of thing I do: something absolutely zany, and sudden, with little fanfare, but lots of commitment once I’m in. And afterwards, there are usually a few scars and bruises to show for it.

My divorce happened the same way. I had been pondering it for a while. Inching up towards the edge of the cliff, gazing down into the murky darkness below, I knew I was scared because I didn’t know what lay in the darkness, but I did know the unhappiness that had chased me up to the precipice. The same unhappiness that lurked there when I finally took a breath, closed my eyes, and jumped off the cliff. With little fuss, on an otherwise uneventful night in January a couple of years ago, I stood in my kitchen in California and told my husband that I was done with the infidelities and lies and unhappiness, and that I would be divorcing him.

It took a while before I hit the ground after that leap. There were a lot of dark and lonely nights, a lot of false starts, a lot of sacrifices and some high prices to pay. But it finally ended, perhaps fittingly, on February 14 of this year. While I was drinking margaritas and watching Deadpool with my friends in Indiana, a judge was signing off on my divorce decree in California, freeing me from a life that I had once felt was the only thing left for me. Now, I know that's not true; I've had a year and change of really genuine happiness to know that the only unhappiness that is permanent is the one that we force on ourselves. 

There will be bruises, but they will fade. There will be wounds that bleed, but they will scab over and scar. The fall may be long and terrifying, and the landing may be rough, but sometimes...you just have to jump. 

February: The Anti-Love Lettter

Dear February,

To hell with you.

No, seriously, bugger off. You were a lousy, weird month, and I am not sorry to see the back of you. What you lacked in length, you more than made up for in sheer, ridiculous douchebaggery. Pretty much the best part of the month were the last few hours, in which I hung out with friends and played games and drank all the drinks and stewed in a ginormous vat of rage. The fact that we were under tornado watches and warnings that last evening served only as a metaphor for the chaos you brought down on us.

The Bad

First, my grandmother. February, you took my bright, beautiful, brave Mawga from us, and you broke our hearts. Forget that she was 95 and ready to go; this is on you and I'll never forgive you for that and screw any logic that says otherwise.

Now let's talk about the weather. I mentioned your tornados...now let's talk about the seventy degree weather you saw fit to bless us with over the course of several days. It was damned surreal to be stumbling around in a fog of grief, with a thousand-yard stare, and being dimly aware of the crowds of people walking around in shorts and brilliant smiles, enjoying the unexpected reprieve. Whatever happened to weather to match my mood? And while we're at it...what happened to WINTER?

In what is hopefully the last part of the saga of my Never-Ending Headcold/Sinus Infection/Bronchitis/Costochondritis from hell, I took yet another course of antibiotics. This stuff...it jacked me up but good. Totally suppressed my appetite, made me sick to my stomach, got my heart racing. So I spent 10 days of you feeling hangry, anxious, and vaguely wondering if I was experiencing the world's longest heart attack.

The most ominous thing happened right at the end of the month:

Rest in peace, Beatrice. You were a beautiful glass and you followed me all the way from California and you served me well, and gave me a lot of wine that got me through some bad nights. I'm sorry you died at the bottom of a sink in Indiana. You deserved a better death than that.


Now, the Good. Because, yes, there was some good. 

February, you were a month of friends. There were movie nights and Mexican food and jaunts up to Indy and all sorts of secrets shared and inside jokes created. Making female friends has been difficult for me--absurdly, I seem to have bonded with more dudes this last year--but I'm finally building up some bonds with ladies. My friend Diana has been an especially rock-solid source of support and laughter...even if she is terrified of cats.

After my Mawga passed away, some of my friends risked spending a Sunday afternoon with me, and we went out to Gaden Kachoe Shing, the Buddhist monastery here in our town, and made cookies for the Lunar New Year, and gazed at the extravagant beauty in the temple, and then we went out for a walk on the grounds and I cried at random times. And then we sat down by a lake and gazed out at the stunning afternoon (Okay, fine, the weather was kind of nice and I won't totally hold it against you, February) and made plans for the coming months, and I would occasionally speak of my grandparents and look out at the trees and land and water that were probably very similar to what they saw growing up a couple of hours north of where I live now.

Basically, I have spent almost an entire year trying to embed myself in the community, build support networks, make friends. And in this wretched February, I learned who my friends are: people that I allow myself to feel vulnerable with. People to whom I know I can reach out when I am in a sad and rotten place. I am a lucky, lucky woman, and if all I ever have in my life are friends, I know that it's been a life well lived. 

One other excellent thing happened this month...on Valentine's Day, no less: 

The divorce is final. It's done. It's over. And given the lengthy, rambling nature of this odyssey, and the rewards that have come from it, this deserves its own day in the blog sun. But I had to rejoice here, just a tiny bit. 

Coincidentally (or not), this leads us into...

What the Hell is This Even? Let me Poke it With a Stick and Ponder It: 

Moving along to matters of the heart. Or the hoo-hoo. Or whatever. I have a few friends that are actively trying to pursue this whole dating thing. Generally, I find it more than a little bit horrifying.  I watch them tie themselves in knots over it, and I try to counsel them with probably shitty advice, and shudder at the thought of it all. One of the biggest reasons why I avoided dating since I left Scoots Magoo was because I didn't know what I wanted, and didn't want anyone to be the collateral damage in my fight against myself. But during February, I somehow got it in my head to...experiment? Stick a toe in the water? See what I'd been missing out on? So I did. I stuck a toe in the water. And I actually learned a few things...

First...

• I know my worth way more now than I did even a few years ago. Guess what? I'm an attractive, fiercely smart, honest, funny, loyal, professionally successful kind of gal. And yet...
• I am so very oblivious to if or when a person is interested in me. 
• The longer I go without affection, the easier it gets. That, and the fact that I am not plagued by the biological compulsion to procreate, means that I have the luxury of not feeling the need to "find someone" now now now. 
• Here's the thing about Friends with Benefits: If you don't behave like a friend, you don't get the benefits. 
• There are two kinds of guys that I am afraid of: guys that think they are cute (they were so, so mean to me for most of my childhood and adolescence) and guys that I might like. (If I like them, they have the ability to hurt me.) So I react to my fear by preemptively turning into a defensive bitch. That's something I should probably work on if I ever seriously decide to start dating again.
• I do not want or like anxiety in my life, and "dating" (I use those quotes because I'm honestly not sure if anyone ever actually dates anymore)/sex/feels gives me BAD anxiety. 
• The longer I am single, the more possessive I am of my life, my physical space, and my emotional resources. I like the life I have, and I am not at all convinced that dating would integrate well into it. Which means...
• I still don't know what the hell I want. 

It makes me so very grateful that I spent most of my first year back not dealing with this dating insanity nonsense shit stuff. It's just so...so...well, when I don't have words for what it is, you know it's something altogether...something.

So that's it. February, you really packed a wallop. It wasn't nice knowing you. You weren't the worst month of my life, but you sure as shit gave it your best shot. You didn't kill me. You put me through a little bit of hell in a few ways, and I guess maybe that's the final good thing: when I go through hell, I survive every goddamn time.

No Love,
The Indy Grrl