promises

This childhood memory came flooding back to me the other day and I felt compelled to share it. I’m curious to see what you hink.

I have a thing about promises. They make me uncomfortable mostly because they’re seldom kept.
I have a bad history with them so I try not to make them and I’m wary of the people who do.

I will never understand how someone can look you in the eye and make a promise they never intend to keep.
It’s a character flaw disguised as a talent. One that I’ve seen come in handy in politics, poker and adultery.

I can trace it back to my first broken promise which was one summer when my me, and my little sister and brother were kids.

The summers seemed hotter as a kid in the early 1960’s and although we were fortunate enough to have a house with central air which I realize as an adult was like being born with not only a silver spoon but the entire set of sterling silver flatware in your mouth; but…to balance that out we also had a frazzled mother who was perpetually locking us outside.

And not in a neglectful, call Child’s Services kind of way—more like the “get out of my hair—go outside and play” way.

But that wasn’t us. We weren’t cut out for suffering. God’s smart. He puts the altruistic, brave kids with tons of stamina in Africa. He sends all the weak sucks to Los Angeles, California.

So, needless to say, if anyone owned or had access to a real built-in swimming pool, well, we were on them like white on rice.

My dad, (who, as it turns out also had a very loose and one-sided relationship with promise keeping) had these two friends/employees, a set of identical twins named Bob and Ray. They were single young men in their early twenties who were young and ambitious. They had that “we’re good with kids” quality that was like catnip to the three of us.

So, they played with me, and rough-housed with my little brother and held my baby sister in their laps and just basically sucked up to their boss by paying attention to us when they came over for beer and a bar-b-que.

I’m sure they were exhausted when they left. I’ve been them. The single person at a family home who gets to entertain the young kids while the parents take advantage of that time to suck down a couple of cocktails and do the unthinkable—speak in full sentences to each other.

On one such occasion Bob or Ray, I can’t remember which (I hadn’t quite mastered telling them apart), mentioned something about a swimming pool. I think they were staying somewhere that had a pool or they knew someone who did. Anyway, if anyone says the words “swimming pool” in front of little kids (who are only several years removed from being fish) it triggers them like the secret code word in a bad spy movie. We kind of froze and our eyes spun around, and then the begging began.

“Can we come over and swim? Pleeeeeeease? Pretty pleeeeeease? With sugar on top?”

Completely unashamed, we crawled all over them like a couple of spider monkeys and begged until our throats were sore and no more sound came out. Looking back I’m sure that was fun for them.

Knowing the begging would only cease when my mom (who I’m certain secretly wore earplugs) would shoo us off to bed and in order to shut us up and gain back control of their adult evening, one of them, ( I think it was Bob. No. Maybe it was Ray) anyway, he caved and invited us to come and swim.

“You guys want to swim? Sure. Maybe on Monday.”

Well, we were little kids—we took this to. The. Bank.

This is the point in the story when I grab you by the chin and make you look me in the eye, and I say to you with all the sincerity I can muster, “Please do not EVER promise little kids that you will do anything—let alone take them swimming—if you have no intention of doing so. Because kids take you at your word. They take you seriously. We most certainly did.”

Monday! Monday! We were going to a real swimming pool. To swim. On Monday!! Yeah!!! Was our chant.

Finally, (in dog years time) Monday arrived and a miracle occurred. Our mom didn’t even have to encourage us to brush our teeth and get dressed because my brother, my little sister and I were in our bathing suits and ready to go by 8 am. But by mid-morning things turned vague. I remember it distinctly. That weird sinking feeling in my belly. Suddenly, my mom wasn’t really sure the swimming was happening THIS Monday.

“Wait. What?”

I can’t remember exactly how this next part came to pass but somehow we got Bob and Ray’s telephone number and before you could say Cannon Ball—I called them. Me. Little seven or eight-year-old me. And one of them answered. I think it was Ray but it was probably Bob saying he was Ray because he was about to break the hearts of three little kids.

“Oh not today, sweetie”, he said, “We’ll do it soon”, he promised. I could barely breathe, a wave of something I later learned to identify as disappointment washed over me.

“Okay”, I said, trying not to cry. “But when?”
“Soon”, he said and hung up.

Dial tone. Remember dial tone? It’s the soundtrack behind both a beginning and an end. Anticipation and sorrow.

That day is still so vivid to me. I was changed after that. Maybe some innocence was lost.
I know. Boo hoo, Some children know REAL disappointment. In Africa.
But this felt huge to us.

After lunch, we went outside to play and run through the sprinklers. I remember my mom, sensing our disappointment, giving us fudgesicles as a treat.

Chocolate and disappointment. Now I can trace the birth of this unbreakable partnership to that very day.

Carry on,
xox

“It’s as if she assumes everything will go right, and when it doesn’t – which, of course, is pretty often – she is surprised and affronted.”
― Christina Baker Kline

My flat-iron weighed in this morning.

Even though NO ONE asked its opinion, apparently it agrees with my decision to stop chemically straightening my hair.

I was born with naturally frizzy, wavy hair and as of this morning it thinks I should just make peace with it already!

Did I mention that although it has had to take on the almost Herculean task single-handedly, without the assistance of caustic chemicals, it doesn’t get a vote?

Anyway, in a blatant act of jackassery it decided to run cold. Ice cold. Half way through doing my hair.

Really? It wore out?
Airplanes fly, full of people and shit, day in and day out, back and forth and around the world for ten or twenty years. They don’t even get to take a breath.

The very thing; the only task it was born to do was to heat up and deliver to me stick straight hair.

I never asked it for shine or a softer texture. That would have been over reaching. It would have seemed ungrateful.

Nope, I only needed it to heat up to a surface temperature hot enough to grill a Panini, and thus straighten my hair—and as of this morning it could do neither. Fuck it.

Time of death: 08:25

First appearance of freaky looking helicopter hair: 08:26

What do you do when something or someone can’t live up to their promise?

I get MAD.

I want to throw things…and scream. I want to smash glass, stomp my feet, and let loose a long string of obscenities…then MAYBE, after I’m worn out—I negotiate.

That’s the time I initiate an uneasy détente.
That’s the place where there is pleading, cajoling, mixed with prayers and promises— and that’s just me.

“Please, if you just finish my hair, I’ll…I’ll…cure world hunger.”
Then invariably the talks break down and I’m frantically pushing buttons and kicking and breaking things again.

Have I mentioned I don’t handle disappointment well? How are you guys with that?

I count on things. I look forward to things.
Like hot water, hot coffee and a hot flat-iron.

I take those things for granted in the morning. Like the sun rise, morning breath, and pooping.

Why can’t they just deliver?
They have one fucking reason for being. To make me seem impossibly fresh, naturally beautiful, happy and ready for the day.

Pivoting. Turning on a dime. Going with the flow.

I like to think I’ve got that process in the bag.
Until the Universe fucks with my fat iron.

Or my coffee maker.

Or my water heater.

Can anyone say Mercury retrograde?

Hey, how’s your Monday?

Carry on (if you see me and my shitty hair today…just keep walking)
Seriously.

xox

When you get married, you say the words For better or for worse, and you mean them.

I know I did. At least as much as you can grasp the true meaning of for worse –– as it seems so remote in that moment, just a phrase inside of a vow -– especially after a flute of champagne -–  or four.

I took it to mean someone who is legally obligated by the State of California to share with me the good times as well as the bad. I felt reassured by that.

But what if you discover that when a for worse happens, like a death, the two of you process and handle the situation COMPLETELY differently.
How could you have known that?
And now what?

Especially when the deceased was loved equally by the both of you, how do you cope?

When something bad happens you want me on your team.
You see, I have what I call Delayed Reaction Syndrome. I immediately go into a hyper focused state – cool, calm and collected. I’m the one that makes the calls, orders the food, hands out the Kleenex, writes the eulogy, and is clear-headed enough to make all the uncomfortable decisions. I’m the furthest thing from emotional.
I’m …robotically rational. That is, until it what I call Phase Two kicks in.

My husband on the other hand wears his emotions on his sleeve. Actually they cover the entire outside of his body -– most especially his face.

He is incapable of holding back tears or masking sadness, and his reaction to death is appropriate and immediate.
There is no ambiguity. He’s profoundly sad and you know it.
In that respect we are a perfectly balanced match.

He grieves in the moment, while I get shit done.

There are cultures in the Mid East and Africa where they wail when someone dies, loudly and with great emotion, their bodies and faces contorted by grief. They even have professional wailers, I guess to help the family (and us Delayed Reaction types) along their emotional path.

I envy that. I really do. It appears to be an amazing release.

Two to three hours later is when Phase Two starts.

That’s about the time the tidal wave of sadness and grief comes ashore, washing me out to sea. Now I’m the one who needs comfort, I become numb, my mind unable to focus, and I want to talk and hug…a lot.

But by that time my husband is finished with his outward displays of emotion. He’s all cried out. He has now retreated deep inside, into his cave, and had moved a huge boulder over the entrance.

There’s no reaching him now.

I need to be held and reassured. That is uncharacteristically physically uncomfortable for him.
I need to cry…with someone. My tears are too much for him to handle. He’s reached sadness saturation. He is not available to me in any way, shape or form.

Moving through grief is a very solitary process, and it looks different for everyone.
I get it, I do.
But I don’t like it.

Come to find out we are just as incompatible in Phase Three.

His looks like this: Stay busy. Busy is good. Plan as many meetings and work related things as you can. Book yourself solid for twelve hours straight – then come home and pass out. Try to forget. Want all signs of the deceased erased from the house (I couldn’t do it) and no talking or tears please, too raw.

Mine looks like this: Stay in pj’s on the couch. Cancel meetings, walk neighborhood aimlessly while crying, with Kleenex stuffed up both nostrils, and don’t eat. Isolate and wish for company all at the same time. Bore strangers with your stories. Wish alcohol made you feel better or even helped you to sleep for that matter. Wash all the blankets and beds and then suffer huge regret, searching for her smell. Curl up with favorite stuffed animal for waaaaayyy too long. Forget to wash hair for three days.

Like I said, grief is an extremely solitary emotion that no amount of hugs, or kind words can help. Only time.

And just when you need it the least, it drives a wedge between two people who deal with death differently.

Even two people who love each other to bits just can’t manage to show up to soothe the other person. It was the first time I couldn’t help him. And it just goes to show that even when someone is legally bound to be there for you, sometimes they just can’t…and that came as a complete surprise –– and a crushing disappointment.

Phase Four:

You’ve got to find your solace inside yourself and that’s excruciatingly hard.

Even though he was required by law, when he promised, “I do” –– to be there for worse –– for me –– he had to find his own way first, and while he did that, I searched for my own.

Then we met, after a week, somewhere in the middle –– with open wounds and tears and stories of our journey, and in the process of finding our way back; we’ve grown and changed.

We’re different, and I think in the end we’ll be the better for it.

Carry on,
Xox

INTENTIONAL
in·ten·tion·al
inˈtenCHənl/
adjective
1. done on purpose; 
synonyms: deliberate, calculated, conscious, intended, planned, meant, studied, knowing, willful, purposeful, purposive, done on purpose, premeditated, preplanned, preconceived

I’m not someone that does year end resolutions.

As a matter of fact I haven’t met a resolution I didn’t obliterate. If they lasted past January (which they didn’t), but if they did, they would be sure to crash and burn before making into the first week of February.

You know who you are expensive gym membership, French lessons, books taunting me on the nightstand.
I’m just not that girl.
Kinda like giving things up for Lent. I sucked at that too.

What I do like to do, and believe in doing; is to set an intention for the New Year. That I can do.

I meditate the day before and again on the morning of the first – with purpose.

You can just sit quietly in your favorite chair in your jammies and cosy socks, with your eyes closed, that’ll do just fine.
Then pick a feeling you want to feel. Can’t think of one?

Imagine an obstacle or problem – solved.
How would that feel? Like relief? Freedom? Joy? 

Imagine that stubborn project completed. Pride? Relaxed? Accomplished? Feel that?

Imagine your knee or shoulder or back, free of pain. How do you feel? Strong? Healthy? Vital?

Pick an emotion and marinate in it while you sit and breath. Pull it with you into 2015. Call it forward. Be deliberate. Do it on purpose.

If your mind strays (and it will) dive back in and marinate some more.

As you marinate it will tenderize you, I promise.

If you can stay in it for five minutes, congratulations! If you can do more, you’re a super star!

Be intentional for 2015.
If you believe that we create our reality (like I do), you don’t have to imagine the specifics of the events of the year – just hold the feeling.

I’m going for satisfaction. It is my Holy Grail. I can admit that I am almost never, truly and deeply satisfied. I could do/be better. There is always more that could be written/said/done.

That will be my intention this year, to feel satisfied.

How do you want to feel in 2015? Would you want to share?

Loving you into the New Year,
Xox