David

David and I have been dating for almost 18 months and making crispy tofu still eludes me. 

It's maddening. 

His current shifts have him working until late--8:00 or 8:30PM and I take a lot of pride in having something delicious on the table when he comes home. Eggplant parmesan, homemade root vegetable pot pie, stuffed squash and mashed potatoes--anything that gives me something to do in the evenings and makes it so he has something to look forward to after a long shift on a snowy evening. 

Tonight I've been trying to make a crispy tofu stir fry and the tofu turns out fine, I guess. But it's not what I wanted for him. 

It upsets me more than it should. 

* * *

When I'm feeling truthful, I'll admit I knew something was wrong in my last relationship. 

Of course I did. There were so many indications that my ex and I didn't belong together, that we weren't really compatible. I briefly thought about calling off our wedding about a month before it happened, but I felt like I was too far into it. 

I wasn't brave enough to admit that we were failing. 

I lived on comfort food during the years with my ex. Hotdish, pasta carbonara, anything that was a simple carb. Anything that was both comforting and that I didn't actually care how it turned out. 

Just thinking about my diet now makes me shudder and realize two things. 

I was deeply in love. 

I was profoundly unhappy. 

* * *

"Jesus, it's hot in here."

"Yeah, the air-conditioner has never been very good. Do you need anything?"

"Water?"

He gets out of bed and heads toward the kitchen. Before he gets there he doubles back and puts on a record.

"I think you'll like this."

He turns on an artist from his hometown--someone I've never heard before. I space out for much of the record in the way you do when you're happy and in love and in the moment. 

Then there's a lyric that catches me. It's funny how that happens, isn't it? 

I got a tenderhearted lover who does me good.

He's a little rough around the edges but don't let that fool you.

This is the most content I've been in years. 

***

I've been hesitant to write too much about David. 

I wrote a lot about the ex and our relationship and I'm superstitious. I haven't wanted to jinx what I have. 

I've also spent a lot of time thinking about my marriage vs. my relationship with David. 

I'm not going to do yet another post-mortem of my marriage. My ex doesn't deserve that kind of thought. What I will say is that I feel like I have a partner in everything. I have someone who has my back and who loves me, even on our worst days. This is the most loved, supported, and . . .  I don't know, seen I've ever felt. 

I think a lot about that song he played me when we first started dating.

Never gonna be perfect, but I'm still gonna try. 

Closest thing I'll ever get is you by my side. 

We've been through such a ridiculous, maddening, infuriating year. Between COVID and layoffs and elections, I feel like there's so much that could have--should have gone wrong in a relatively new relationship. And we're still together. I'm still deeply in love and profoundly happy. 

I still give a shit about how the tofu turns out. 

Magic

David wakes me up.

It's not an unusual thing. He's usually up by 5AM and comes in to kiss me goodbye before he leaves. Usually I'll wake up just enough to have a conversation with him I'll forget by the time my alarm goes off. Sometimes I'll say something insane and make him laugh before he leaves ("Why are you putting catheters in the cats?" was one of his favorites).

This morning somewhere between telling me about taking out the garbage and doing the laundry, my eyes drift open and I grab his hand.

"I was dreaming about magic," I tell him.

* * *

"I thought you always wanted, like, a billion kids."

An old acquaintance from college likes to throw this in my face whenever she sees me reacting to a baby crying in public or a toddler having a meltdown on public transit.

I'm never reacting for the reason she thinks. 

I've tried everything I can to get her to stop talking about it, to stop making the joke. There were lots of things I wanted in my early 20s and there were lots of things I thought I wanted in my early 20s.  This is a small hurt, but an old one, and I've learned how to deal with it.

Sometimes it's easier to bear someone's unthinking cruelty than explain why it's cruel.

* * *

When I was a kid I used to fall asleep pretending that I could do magic. 

I would imagine that I was living a giant treehouse and that I was a princess of the woods. On nights when I couldn't sleep I would imagine riding on my oversized wolf, followed by my size-shifting cat. We were adventuring out to find and destroy the Tomes of Black Magic, which were scattered throughout the mundane and magical worlds. I fought every kind of monster I could think of, but those confrontations were always physical or besting the monster using my intellect. Magic was always only used when I returned to the treehouse. 

Magic was about creating.

* * *

"What are you thinking about?" 

We're waiting for the number twenty-three on our way to a movie. I've been watching a little girl walking through the twilight with her father, puttering along next to him and singing to herself. 

"I just feel a little wistful." 

He sees where I'm looking. "Yeah?" 

I nod. "It's hard, knowing that it's an experience I'm never going to have. I was once watching some friends, the ones you met last week? I remember watching them playing with their daughter and realizing that I'd never feel what they were feeling." I pause. "And I know, I know that I'm making the right decision, but sometimes I want it so badly it feels physical." 

I stop, expecting some platitude about how sometimes correct decisions aren't easy, or that there's always time to change my mind, or any of a hundred other things a dozen different people have told me. 

He just squeezes my hand. "I know."

* * *

"Here, take this," David whispers, handing me his handkerchief. 

We're seeing a play by one of my favorite theatre companies in the area. Their stuff always destroys me. It's beautiful and moving and always makes me cry. This particular show is about magic and authenticity and love and has me sobbing, loudly, during the final five minutes. 

It's also, I think, about illusions. The lies we tell ourselves to keep ourselves safe from reality. 

That's really what's making me cry.

* * *

David and I can't have kids. 

I suppose the more correct thing to say is that we can't have kids without a lot of expensive and invasive medical intervention that neither of us would want. 

I got a little weepy just writing that. 

Here's the thing. I don't know if I've ever seriously wanted a child. I agonized about it a lot in my late 20s. The logical decision, given my mental health history and income and a feelings about actually raising a child, is to not have one. It's a decision that I'm comfortable with about 90% of the time. 

I'm sure I don't have to explain the difference between making a decision and having it made for you. 

It's oddly devastating to know that we can't have something I was pretty sure I never wanted in the first place. David is the first person I would have ever considered having a baby with and it's a choice we'll never really be able to make. 

Which makes things complicated.

* * *

So here's the part where I'll be comparing motherhood and pregnancy to my feelings on magic and creation. Or having one of those uplifting moments in memoir writing where I realize that I can channel my creative impulses to writing or my work or volunteering or something. 

Yeah, no. 

Because the thing is that if suddenly ohmygodmagicisreallyreal I wouldn't magic myself a baby (I've read folklore, I know how that one ends). I also wouldn't magic myself into complete serenity about my choices and become a renowned writer. 

Well, maybe that last part. 

Now, at thirty-five instead of five I realize that magic isn't about creation. It isn't even about choice. It's about the illusion, the ability to convince yourself that you ever had any fucking option.

It's another in a series of grim but true revelations I've had in my mid-30s. But even that realization doesn't really change things. 

I still wake up dreaming of magic. 

Daddy

"Are you still writing?"

It's a question from my father, at the end of a long weekend. 

I'm startled. I never knew that he read my writing, much less cared if I was still doing it. He's always been a fairly practical man, so I tell him about how much money I'm making, what's in my IRA, and how I'm hoping to buy a house in the next year. 

"Um, no. I don't really have time for it with the new-ish job and the commute, you know?"

He nods, and goes back to watching television. 

* * *

I barely cry at my grandmother's funeral. 

It was last weekend, right in the midst of of COVID-19 insanity, and for good or ill I go back to Wisconsin for her funeral. 

I guess I won't know if it was the right decision until fourteen days from now, when I find out if any of us contracted COVID. I'm not going to justify going aside from saying that she was a towering figure in my life, a surrogate parent when mine couldn't be there, and that I was as responsible as I could be. 

Anyway, I barely cry. As the designated Emotional One in the family, I'm a little shocked by my own stoniness. My cousins cry. My brothers cry. Even my father cries. 

I get the church giggles. 

* * *

"My psychologist thinks I have PTSD."

I'm out for dinner with my then-boyfriend. Things have been bad for awhile now, but I'm about to make them a lot worse. 

"Oh really?"

"Yeah."

When I try to change the topic by saying something I don't know, neutral, he ignores it and stares pensively into his sushi. 

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Well, she thinks I have PTSD."

It takes me a minute to process this. I've spent years working in domestic and sexual violence, lived through a sexual assault, and have sat with people dear to me while they relive their own trauma. I don't want to be insensitive, but his life has been deeply, profoundly normal. I hold my breath, tense and worried about what he's going to tell me.  

He sighs.

"The trauma of never living up to my father's expectations of me."

"PTSD because you don't live up to your father's expectations of you?"

"Yeah."

"Isn't that just the human condition?"

"Well, I also told her I wanted access to medical grade marijuana for recreation." 

We break up a few weeks later. 

* * *

I have a complicated relationship with my father. 

I mean, everyone does, and many of us in the same way, right? Daddy (and you could do a whole psychoanalysis on my calling him "Daddy" at 35, but I don't fucking care or have the energy for it).

Sorry, let me recalibrate. 

Daddy taught me a lot. How to hit a baseball and dribble a basketball (neither well, but not because of him). He taught me how to fish and the importance of a good work ethic. He taught me to give back to my community and a lot about generosity. 

I love him so much it hurts. 

My father has also hurt me deeply over the years. I can't (won't?) come out to my immediate family because he's said awful things about gay people during my life. He believes that financial success is a matter of work ethic and can be deeply dismissive about my personal experiences. 

I still love him so much it hurts.

* * *

I have never lived up to my father's expectations of me. 

I think about it a lot. When I'm flirting with a pretty girl. When I'm voting for a Socialist. When I take the attitude of "I'd rather pay someone to repair it." 

It's what I think about when I make it through my grandmother's funeral dry-eyed.  

It's only later, after a small breakdown in the car on the way to Minnesota that I start to see thing a little differently. My dry eyes during the funeral weren't a shortcoming, but a bit of his Stoicism that I managed to hold on to. His tears were, perhaps, the tiniest expression of a same emotions that I often feel every fucking day. 

I think a lot about that, and a lot about the question he asked me about writing. And perhaps this whole post is just one more attempt to have him be proud of me, even though he'll never read it. I honestly don't know. 

But I hope he is. 

Stillness

Be still he tells me.
His stillness
is blackbird songs.
Mine,
ambulance sirens.
He smells fresh bread breaking
and I,
Ammonia cleaner.
He feels our cat's reassuring purr.
I only her sharp claws.
Be still, he tells me.
I love him enough to try.

Purge

I'm doing the dishes and thinking a lot about barfing.

"No," my brain corrects me. "Not barfing. It's purging all that awful stuff you just put into you body."

That "awful stuff" includes some leftover mac and cheese and a piece of fried fish from last night's birthday dinner. I also ate a slice of leftover birthday cake and had a glass of wine.

It's disgusting. I'm disgusting.

I can't stop thinking about how good it would feel to get it all out of my body, quickrightthismoment before it gets digested.

I'm fantasizing about it as I write this.

* * *

I spent most of my late 20s blaming my upbringing for my OCD and this never-ending goddamn food fight. With some therapy and a lot of grace, I've managed to understand that genetics and really fucking bad luck are at least as important. And even if nurture has more credit then I'm giving it, how much can I actually blame my folks? They gave me a pretty good childhood. I can understand their own trauma and struggles with anxiety (even if they've never called it that). 

I still spend a lot of time trying to hack my own brain

Tonight I remind myself of All-or-Nothing thinking, and that body dysmorphia lies. I identify other cognitive dissonances. I talk to friends. I do small things that make me happy. I practice self-care as best as I can (tonight that involves a lot of petting my cats). 

I do okay. Better than some nights. Worse than others.

I still think about purging.

* * *

Once, a friend told me a story about how thin her sister got while she had a nasty cocaine habit. Later, I spent hours trying to figure out if I know someone who could hook me up. 

I know. 

What I don't know is if I'll ever get to place in recovery where I don't obsessively think about what I've consumed or the amount of exercise that I've done. The prospect of being able to recognize a cleanse or clean eating fad as immediately dangerous to my mental health seems impossible. The act of eating a piece of cake without crying about it later is so enormous it overwhelms me.

For now all I can do is accept the space that medication and therapy have given me to pause and consider the damage purging will do to my teeth and throat, recognize that getting dizzy from not eating isn't something to be proud of, and that, you know, picking up a coke habit to lose weight probably isn't a good idea.   

Beginning

This apartment is different in so many ways.

To start, it's full of my stuff. My books, my art, and my mother's rocking chair are all out in the open again. Shelves of DVDs are not considered decoration. While it's certainly lived-in, it's also tidy and cozy.

I've only been here for a few weeks, but it already feels more like home than the apartment my ex and I shared for three years.

The biggest change is that there's music in the house again.

It's been over three years since I've been able to turn on an album without first having the check with my ex about whether or not it would overstimulate him. (it would) Or ask if he was planning to turn on television or a video game (he was). Or inquire about whether or not he wanted to talk about anything (he never did).

Granted, a lot of it is Patsy Cline, Billie Holiday, and with the occasional interlude into The Smiths when I'm feeling really awful.

It's a start.

* * *

Dating is a wasteland of human sadness. 

It's the same and not the same as it was before I met the ex. The apps are similar enough. The performative woke-ness is excruciatingly worse. Dick pics and gross men still abound. But I'm more comfortable with my sexuality and myself this time through. 

It's a long string of pleasant but not right dates until a friend introduces me to a friend. 

It is the perfect rebound relationship. 

Here's what makes it perfect. It's friendly and has some of of the best and most open communication I've ever had about expectations and sex and feelings. The conversations veer between flirting and arguing, and it's good to stretch those muscles again. The sex is intense and affirmative and helps me start to get over a lot of hurtful things my ex said. The bourbon is plentiful and high-quality. 

And when it's over, it's just . . . over. Friendly notes about Star Trek or careers occasionally, but there's no pining or long-term sadness.

It's a midpoint.

* * *

 I come home after a long and emotionally exhausting day to a clean house, reasonably calm and fed cats, and dinner on the stove. Amy Winehouse is on the radio singing the blues.

The new boyfriend is everything you'd want a new boyfriend to be. He's whattheheck silly and holyshit handsome and ohmygodareyoureal? kind. He tells me I'm gorgeous when I'm running errands in my old baseball hat and a grubby t-shirt. He tells me I'm gorgeous other times, too. He treats my parents to breakfast when they meet him. 

Every moment that I spend with him feels precious.

He gets me a glass of tea and does something to make me laugh. On the radio, Amy is singing about love being a losing game and in this moment, I don't even care if she's right. This doesn't feel like losing game. It doesn't feel like an ending.

It feels like a really good beginning.

I Had to Retitle This Post Because of Facebook

This is a Post About Suicide

* * *

Right after clicking the link, I realize that this is not something I should be reading right now.

The headline reads "I am Not Always Very Attached to Being Alive."

"Oh, boy" I think.

I want to write about suicidal ideation and depression, but in order to do that I need to do a couple other things first.

I am not currently actively suicidal.

Depressed? Uh-huh, but I can see the light. I think. Struggling with an eating disorder? Yes, and it's awful. Only able to write this post because a close friend has fed, walked, and cleaned up after me? Totally. Currently wishing I just didn't exist? Yeah, sometimes.

* * *

A few years ago I was briefly admitted to the ER because of suicidal ideation.

I only ended up there because one of my best friends, who lived nearly 800 miles away, told me that I was not thinking clearly and I needed to talk to someone who was not her. Honestly, not much came of it because I was resistant to treatment and still married so there was, theoretically, someone to keep an eye on me.

After the fact I had a lot of long conversations with my GP and shrink. We were all satisfied with the diagnosis that even then, it had more to do with a really bad obsessive compulsive episode and less to do with actually wanting to die.

This probably sounds like a specious distinction to a lot of people, but I promise that it's one that matters.

* * *

I'm not always happy to be alive.

Much of the time I am tremendously grateful for life, for the ability to know and love the people I do. I adore my job and take a deep sense of meaning from it. I enjoy achieving goals and learning and experiencing moving art. Even on my very worst days, I can still dig deep and find things to grateful for.

Let’s be real, most of the worst days involve knowing that my cats live spoiled, charmed lives because I am here.

I'm still not always thrilled with my own existence.

* * *

Here's what I mean when I say I'm not always happy to be alive.

It's more than just existential boredom. I have dealt with depression as a result of obsessive compulsive disorder and anxiety since puberty. Most of the time, I do okay. I train for triathlons. I go to work. My friends make me laugh so hard I almost pee my pants. I kiss babies and snuggle pets and pay attention to the flowers blooming in my neighborhood.

I love a lot of my life.

But even on good days, if I suddenly winked out of existence, I'd probably be okay with it.

This is passive suicidal ideation. For me, it's chronic and that makes it a hard thing to talk about. The second you say "I'd be okay not existing" you find yourself in midst of a bunch of well-meaning conversations where you're suddenly put in the position of having to comfort other people. Of having to explain that you don't actually have plan to kill yourself, and yes, that actually matters and no, you don't need to be admitted to inpatient care. Of having to listen to someone tell you to just eat more probiotics or do a cleanse or listen to some self-help podcast and you’ll feel better.

I really want to punch that last group in the face.

So much of living with whatever we call this is feeling, is a deep sense of disconnection from, well everything. Even when life is good there’s a part of me that thinks, “Meh. This is good, but I would also be okay with not being.” When people’s first reactions are medication or therapy or yoga, I’m not motivated to actually talk about the fact that I often struggle with the idea of being alive.

Of course, all that does is drive the sense of disconnection I feel.

I’m really tired of that. It’s exhausting to try to explain to people why even when I'm not in a depressive episode I'm not always the most fun to be around. There’s no non-intense way to say to someone that the idea of seeing their kids grow up keeps me alive. It’s frustrating to realize that I’m probably not the only person who lives with this, but no one says anything.

So . . . I am often ambivalent about existence. And I don’t want to feel disconnected or alone or like this is something shameful that I have to hide.

There it is.

Just in time for me to take a dose of probiotics.