Femme Flavor

So. I suppose a little back story is necessary here. My Mamau, my maternal grandmother, had a very serious heart attack three weeks ago. She’s been at Central Maine Medical Center since, due to unforeseen misadventures in open heart surgery, and to be honest, it’s scary as hell. Which is why I haven’t written about it – I’m not ready. So instead, let’s talk about a different kind of terror.

I called Joshua from the hospital this afternoon to check in, since I’d stayed the night with Mamau. My call finds him out walking cuz he “just felt like a walk.” Yeah, right – this kid doesn’t leave the house on a weekend without orders or bribery; what’s really up? Pressing the issue yields nothing, so I say, whatevs, he’s alive, I’ll deal with it later.

I get home from 24 hours at the hospital and a business meeting for which I was woefully unprepared (thank you for your understanding – you know who you are). The boy is in that unusually chipper state that is typically reserved for after he’s been busted on something. I’d been thinking about his peculiar behavior since the phone call earlier in the day, and had decided to casually ask for my change from yesterday’s bus ride and grocery trip. This request turns up no receipt and a discrepancy between amount spent and change received. So I give him the “one more chance to tell the truth” bit. He gets uncomfortable and confesses to going to the store to buy a pack of gum, and swears to me that that’s all he bought. Lying and stealing earn him a night of grounding from all electronics. I know there’s more to this, but he’s not talkin’. I’m puzzled, and honestly a bit worried, because I truly thought he’d spent my money on soda, chips, whatever, and didn’t wanna ‘fess up. But if he was willing to tell about the gum….

We go about our night. I make us a kickass steak dinner while he does the dishes without much complaint, because he knows he’s in the doghouse. We talk books and I give him The Lightning Thief to read. I bust in on his naps and tell him he doesn’t get to sleep off his punishment; he has to stay awake until 1am, his usual weekend bedtime. He complains that he’s really, really tired, and I suggest a shower. He tells me he’s already taken one today.

“………..”

Let’s break this down.

Kid who only takes showers on school days because he knows I’ll make him stop on his way out the door and make him late which means detention if I bust him + Saturday when I wasn’t home and he didn’t have to do a damned thing he didn’t want to = no effing way he showered. But he’s insistent, and I believe him. and, unbeknownst to him, that’s the key to his undoing.

“You showered… because you were getting ready to go out… to buy a pack of gum.”

Checkmate.

“I was going… to meet my friends.”

“Which friends.”

And then my little man takes a deep breath, squares his shoulders and says, “My girlfriend.”

…This is the point at which Kirsten is rendered verbally unconscious.

You guys. I have no training for this. No idea what it’s like to be a 15 year old boy, let alone one on the spectrum. No idea even what it’s like to be a 15 year old girl allowed to talk to boys and date. This shit is foreign and I haven’t given it a single thought – not because I didn’t think I’d have to, but because I didn’t think I’d have to yet.

Things that came of this event:

Joshua and I discussed a lot of important stuff. During which I maybe used the term “heinous bitches.”

I told him I want to meet her, and offered a ride to the mall or something like that. I’m hopeful that she’s a sweet, shy, awkward girl and they’ll just hang out and mostly ignore each other while they play video games on his iPhone. If I smell a rat, bitch better watch herself. (Which I made abundantly clear to J).

We addressed how hard it can be to tell the truth when you don’t know which option is worse (his words) and established a “safe word” for those times when he wants to lie to protect himself. His idea. I was so proud of him for this.

I asked him to think about ground rules for dating, and said I would do the same, and that we’d talk about them tomorrow. This was to buy me time, in case you hadn’t figured that out.

He blushed at least 5 shades of pink to crimson. It was adorable.

I gave him pointers for wooing the ladies. Cuz what the hell kind of dyke sister-mom would I be if I didn’t?

What this all amounts to is —- actually, I don’t know. Right now, Joshua and I are having the most ADHD night ever, and I’ll leave you with this snippet:

“Tomorrow I think we really should try to finish that game [Zelda].”

“We can probably do that; I only have three things to do tomorrow – finish the business proposal that was interrupted by your girlfriend-having-ness, give the dead bird to my friend, and meet my ex-girlfriend’s uncle.”

“Don’t you mean, ‘ex-ex-girlfriend?”

Yeah, this is how we roll.

A friend of mine just posted something related to the Boston Marathon bombing and mentioned “closure” in a comment. In that moment, I thought about some writing I’ve done this week and some plans I’ve made for things I want to send out into the world either physically or electronically, and realized that that’s what they’re all about.

Closure. It’s such an elusive concept, and yet we assign it so much value. Getting closure, taking closure, never having a chance for closure… Closure is important to us. We feel like we need it in order to move on from moments that had an element of finality that we didn’t choose.

I don’t want to appropriate the Boston tragedy; yes, I have connections to it, but all of my loved ones were safe and accounted for and I haven’t lived there in 12 years. What is universal, whether you were born at Mass Gen or have never even been to the east coast, is the way an event like this hits: it could happen anywhere, and it could happen to you, to me, to the relative we haven’t talked to in five years, or “the one that got away.” We see the world differently, if only for a short time, and we either choose to act on that altered, heightened view, or we let it pass us by.

I’m choosing to act on it. I don’t have any expectations, and will try to maintain that once my actions are taken. I don’t foresee grand reconciliations or giant barriers being blown away like feathers. But I know that a weight will be lifted from my heart in each situation, as I’ll have done what I would have done days or months or years ago if my fears hadn’t been greater than my need to do what felt right at the time.

Thank you, Boston, for being my home, for being feisty and dirty and full of heart and teeming with vitality even in the midst of fatality. Thank you America for responding with support and unity and love, love, love. And thank you to each individual whose life will be forever changed by this week’s events. It is for you that I choose to change my life after this week, as well.

…that’s what social media allows – even prompts – us to portray. Be it “my life is so good; envy me,” or “my life is such shit, pity me,” or, “My life is so full I can’t even be bothered to care what you think.” I’ve had fleeting moments of that last, and it’s been a damned good feeling. Not because my full life is in any way superior; just that it is wonderful in and of itself.

I’m willing to state here that, even while my life is coming together in ways I despaired I’d never see, I am frequently painfully aware of the things and people and feelings I miss. The losses I’ve suffered – many by choice – in order to gain a kind of freedom I’ve been told will benefit me in the long run. And sometimes I can see, intellectually, that gain. But often, it is buried deep by the feeling of loss, on an emotional level.

i share my high points via social media. I don’t wanna be one of those people who posts passive-aggressive fb updates or cryptic song lyrics or whatever the hell else I could do that would be indirect communication with the people whose presence I miss in my life. I’ve done that – it doesn’t do anyone any good. And I still do it when my judgment is impaired by one or more of a large number of factors ranging from hormonal to chemical to astrological. It is what it is.

So I guess this is me saying, yeah, sometimes things suck hard. And I don’t share that with the world. But I do share it with a couple of people who love me and totally get what I need and who will support my decisions and understand why I question them and reassure me that even though it hurts and doesn’t make sense and I want to do anything but what I’m doing, I’m doing just right.

But right now, and often, I wanna do what I know is “wrong.” And it takes more effort than I can describe to stop myself from sending a text or making a call or clicking a social media “like” button that would give me away.

i am imperfect in so, so many ways. And while Facebook may not tell you that, I will. I want to. Because it’s important to me to be authentic and genuine and true with you, and with me.

So, yeah. There ya have it. I’m gonna go to bed now, and hope I’ve done the right thing. Because honestly, I never know. I’m always guessing. And my guesses get better with time and experience and self-reflection and hard emotional work – but I will never know if they’re dead on. This is life, this is relation, this is people connecting with other people and each connection has its own trajectory. It’s kind of awesome, if you can ditch the whole “What will people/person/you think if I say/do this thing?” I haven’t forgotten it, but I’m trying really hard to ignore it. Let’s see how that works out.

Sometimes lately I find myself going about my evening, or morning, or lunch break, or weekend, and half-jokingly asking myself or someone else, “Who is this person, and where’s the real Kirsten??” And tonight it hit me that, this IS the real Kirsten. Or at least, more so than I’ve ever been before. This is almost the Kirsten I’ve worked so hard toward becoming, the Kirsten I’ve tried, and failed, to force before her time, berating myself the whole way. My journey of growth and change and self-discovery and then more growth and change – and all of the pain, and joy, those bring – is far from over. But tonight, I’m pleased with who I am.

I need to say that again, because even though I wrote it, and typed it, it’s still kind of surreal, because as often as I’ve used each of those words, I don’t believe I’ve ever, once in my life, put them together in that order:

I’m pleased with who I am.

Not even just content, which I would have been thrilled about not too long ago (yeah, I know that doesn’t make sense semantically. Artistic license). And this is a novel, and damned fine, feeling.

Thank you all for loving me even when I didn’t love myself, and for showing me “me” through your eyes. While I haven’t always – or ever – known how to accept your praise, empathy, support, or simple gestures of love with grace and humility and genuine appreciation, I have felt and remember and treasure each one. They have been among the largest and sturdiest stones I’ve tread along this path to this night and this realization, that I am happy to be me.

As I was logging in to post here just now, I started thinking about the word “satisfying,” and its meaning. Without going to an actual dictionary definition, I consider being “satisfied” as the feeling you get when you have a need or needs met. More than contentment, which I think of as the absence of strife, it alludes to a process of taking action to fulfill an absence, a requirement. I don’t think it matters if you identify the need ahead of time – satisfaction can come even if you didn’t realize you were meeting a need through your action.

What got me on this train of thought is that I have had one of the most satisfying weekends I’ve experienced in a while. Brainstorming on my book idea worked my mind; rearranging my room and setting up my new bed frame worked my body; and spending time in my seaside nook reading, writing, and soaking in the sun and salt spray worked my heart. I am beat, but I am satisfied. And while the weekend was over too soon, as they always are (even when we don’t lose an hour), I’m ready for Monday, with its later sunlight and its fresh starts and opening my eyes from a new place, both literally and figuratively.

I hope you found some satisfaction in your weekend, as well. Here’s to Spring; may she arrive SOON!

Two years ago, I brought my brother to two Portland Pirates games, two nights in a row. As it happened, the chorus and band from the middle school he’d just left when he came to live with me were performing the national anthem and America the Beautiful at those two games.

Two years ago, I came as close as I ever have to punching a twelve year old in the face.

Details are unnecessary, if only because I don’t want to perpetuate the poison these children had learned to put out into the world.

What matters is that, when I went to the Portland High School talent show last night, I saw not only talent, but personality, innovation, and courage on that stage. And in the audience. Not every act had it entirely together. Not every person who took the stage hit every note, pronounced everything correctly, or struck each chord they intended. But every single kid who got up on that stage was rewarded by their peers for the guts it took to do so, regardless of the accuracy of their performance.

Portland High School students, well played. You are going to represent our city well.

Disclaimer: I don’t know anything at all about the inner financial workings of this or any other university, how and when they get paid by government and private loans, etc. This is from the perspective of a frustrated student-hopeful who is tired of receiving shrugs and sympathetic nods and business cards as I’m sent back to Go.

It’s no wonder young people have been leaving the state of Maine at such a rapid and consistent rate for years; the University of Maine System makes it nearly impossible to enroll unless you fit a precise mold. As if the whole process of applying to college isn’t daunting enough, particularly for a recent high school graduate! For someone like me, well… I know USM has a fairly high percentage of “non-traditional” students by comparison to other universities, but I fall a bit outside the norm is all. My high school transcript has been lost to the wind since my school closed, so while I can’t prove to USM that I graduated, I don’t qualify to test for a GED because I did, in fact, graduate from high school.

*blink blink*

Hey, maybe when I contact Portland Adult Education to take the GED, they’ll dig around hard enough to ensure that I don’t have a diploma that they’ll come up with my high school transcript so I don’t have to take the GED after all! And while I am damned proud of people I know who have not finished high school and have gotten their GEDs, is there really a need for both, particularly when the money I spend on the test could go toward my college fund? City College of San Francisco took a chance on me and I paid them out of pocket and maintained a 4.0 until my life flipped on its head; shouldn’t that count for something? Oh, and scholarships? Yyyyeaaaahhhh, not so much for the transfer student. But once I get in, there are more options! Oh wait – still don’t have a HS transcript or (redundant) GED. *headdesk* Seriously, college – stop making it so difficult for students to enroll in your classes and pay your faculty and staff. Take our money, please! Give us the opportunity to learn the skills and gain the experience that will keep us in our communities here in Maine rather than going to bigger cities with lower cost of education, higher pay rates, and in many cases equal cost of living.

And then I see something like this, and I wonder if I should even bother.

Photo snagged from Sasha T Goldberg,who shared knowledgeoftoday.org‘s “The College Conspiracy EXPOSED!” documentary

Seriously, what is wrong with this country’s higher education system? Is there a single thing RIGHT with it?

So, after all that, it doesn’t even matter today if I have my high school transcript or my GED or both or neither – the next step that makes the most sense is to complete 6 more credits toward my core courses at Southern Maine Community College where the classes will cost less, and then I’ll have enough total transferable core class credits for USM to waive the Entry Year Experience course. Because apparently 17 years of being an adult doesn’t cover those specific and exquisitely necessary basics.

*raised eyebrow*

Okay, okay, now I’m just getting snotty. Here’s the thing. I dig you, USM. I think we could hang. But you’re awfully hard to get to know. Give me a shot. Let me in. I promise you won’t regret it.

I’ve written so often about fear as the great controller, the strongest motivator, that reading The Four Agreements’s explanation of how we are conditioned by it from infancy makes me feel awash with gratitude for someone else’s words expressing this as a known fact, handed down through thousands of years of Toltec wisdom. Can these 130 pages also contain the tools for freedom from this universal plague of fear? While I am learning and growing and making different choices in many situations, fear still resides in every aspect of my life, and even when I either ignore it or best it with emotional logic or undeniable truth, it taunts and pokes and slyly discovers chinks in my armor through which doubt can be slipped almost unobserved.

I haven’t been doing such a great job with my gratitude jar this month. There have been so many challenges that overshadowed my ability to see the joys in my life every day. I can’t allow that. Appreciation for the beauty and love and abundance in life is one of the greatest obstacles of Fear, and only by shining that light deliberately and regularly can the darkness fear attempts to shroud me in be extinguished, or at least diminished.

Today I’m grateful for my brother and all the ways I see how he has grown in the last two years. I am grateful for my therapist, without whom this book might have stayed on my “to be read” list for who knows how long. I am grateful for the ways my efforts have enabled me to live without too much volatility even though I can’t currently afford the medication and supplements that have helped me with emotional balance. And I am grateful for love, because it is the teacher of all things. Through love, I have grown and changed and become and felt fulfilled.

What are you grateful for today?

I want to take a moment to thank each of several friends who have lovingly acknowledged that I have been silent here for a while. I’ve felt guilty about it at times, but have also had several reasons for not writing that I felt were justified, and I know I don’t need to explain them for you all to trust me on that.
I’ve been writing privately, keeping busy, and making headway in a few really important areas of my life. So, to get me going again, here’s a bullet list of topics I’ll hopefully have reason and motivation to expand on in upcoming posts.

• College. I used part of my tax refund to clear my hold on my transcript from CCSF, and received a copy in the mail last week. There are still a few hurdles to jump, but I want this. I’m gonna make it happen.
• Theater. I went to a local production of Arsenic and Old Lace, and my love of the stage has been renewed in a big way. I’m going to see my cousin Justin perform his dream role of Princeton in Avenue Q next weekend, have Noises Off! to look forward to in March, and am… *gulp* going out for Grease at Portland Players in the fall. It’s been 15 years since I performed on any but a karaoke stage – it’s time.
• Home. I’d been in a funk about the state of my home – physical, mostly, but also my body, mind, and heart. I’ve splurged on a few small Femme-etries to get me feeling more like the “me” I want to be. I’m going back to my daily Al-Anon readings, and will make myself get back to meetings soon. I am also making an Ikea run to get my space to a happy place. Spring cleaning of all kinds.
• Work. I’m still happy with my job, and have joined a book club (surprised faces, everyone) with a number of providers and other healthcare peeps reading short stories, articles, and novels in a number of categories ranging from technology in healthcare to domestic abuse to epidemics to mental health. The first meeting was really interesting, and I’m looking forward to the next.

So, there’s a lil bit of what’s going on in my world. Again, thank you to those people who notice the absence of my writing as much as its presence. I needed that, and you.

Jenny Lawson, perhaps better known as The Bloggess, shared a video last fall in which she states that depression lies. I had never heard it said that way before, and it really struck a chord for me. Even though she’s mainly addressing suicidal thoughts, which I’ve never struggled with, my battle is against stories my mind spins that are borne out of my own insecurities and have nothing to do with anyone or anything they’re “about.” Today, I’m recalling that video and remembering that sometimes my head isn’t in the right space and I need to bring it back to good. It had been a while since I’d needed this reminder, and I’m pretty sure taking Chantix is contributing to – if not singlehandedly causing – this little derailment. But, I think that by journaling, seeing Richard when I can, and most importantly, talking to the people in my life instead of letting my brain tell me lies about what they’d say if I did, I can manage this. It’s really important to me that I give myself an honest to goodness chance at quitting smoking through a method that has worked so well for many people I know, but it isn’t worth risking relationships I’ve established that are healthy and joyful and loving – particularly my relationship with myself. So, here’s to taking new steps toward well-being, and utilizing the tools I know will help along the way. Thank you to all who stick this out with me; it’s for you as much as me that I’m talking about this here and holding myself accountable for my thoughts and the resulting actions.