Hello!  It's me again.  

I've been gone for a while.  I stole the keys to my parents car and took it for a joy ride.  I did all kinds of grown-up things.  In fact, I thought I had actually grown-up.  

So, did you know cars run out of gas?   Yeah, neither did I.   It ran out of gas in the most inconvenient spot too, in an intersection.  The intersection of Mo Fo Interstate and Bad Ass Expressway, to be exact.

I'm still here and I don't quite know what to do.  I'm confused and scared and everyone seems mad at me.  I don't feel like a grown-up at all.  

That's as far as this metaphor goes.   Turns out metaphors run out of gas as well.

In case you are new here, let me bring you up to speed. I recently extricated myself from a 26 year marriage.  Recently.  Okay, it was like five years ago. But it was a Mormon marriage which are supposedly eternal so the math is a little different.  Something like 26 + 5, divided by forever = recently.  

After years of post extrication deliberation,  I think I know what I did wrong.   I also think I know what he did wrong. But that's not what I want to talk about.  What I want to talk about is what marriage itself did wrong.  The institution of marriage needs to carry some of the blame on this.

So what did marriage itself, as an institution do wrong?  Let's start with it's existence.  It exists.  It exists when technically it no longer needs to.   At least in America and other First World countries, there are no economic or reproductive reasons that humans must, above all else, contractually be bound to a mate. 

It seems that in today's world, two people in love should just be able to casually stay together without getting married.  So why are we still tying the knot? What's with the shackles?

The answer is: Fear, but I'll get to that later.  

Here's the thing.... I love the idea of being committed to a life-partner.  I want to go full-throttle with a fellow "ghost who is driving a meat covered skeleton".  I want to hurl through space on a rock together, sharing all the beauty and terror that that would bring. I want that! I just want to want it for the right reasons.    

So if I want it so bad, why does the idea of marriage terrify me?  Because the idea of marriage is terrifying.  It needs to be fixed.  We need to take a break from trying to fix the people in a marriage and  fix marriage itself.  We keep putting fixed people back into a broken vehicle.

Sometimes people don't break marriages.  Sometimes marriage breaks people.

That's a harsh thing to say.  I know.  It hurt me just typing it.  After all, I do want to get married again someday, but I think I just heard my love-life fly out the window, forever.  But I promise that if you keep reading you will be surprised to see that I am actually pro-marriage.

Let me explain. 

1.  The foundation of marriage: Fear.

You've found your person.  You are building your dreams together.  Quick!  Sign them before someone else does!  That's fear.  Fear that you'll lose them if you don't formalize something.  Like being together won't be enough.  I think there's better things to build a relationship on than fear.  Trust, possibilities, mutual admiration...love.

2.  Quality vs Quantity

That being said, commitment is important.  Commitment helps us reach goals and grow as individuals.  It protects us from our own flighty foibles.  But let's not get carried away.  Commitment should be meted out in quality not quantity.  It seems careless and reckless (and a little cowardly, in my opinion) to make such immense commitments as til death do we part, or in some cases for time and all eternity.  That feels like running to "base" during a game of childhood tag and claiming "I'm safe" as long as you were touching that "base".   It's like quitting, only covertly. 

3.  So here's how we change 1 and 2.  Marriages come with a time-frame, like eight years or ten years or whatever.  At the end of those years, both parties are free to walk away.  Guilt free, blame free, drama free.   It's just over, like you always knew it would be.  Of course, you are free to re-sign and extend for another eight years or whatever, if you'd like, but that's up to you.  It's not up to the expectations of society or your family or your church.  Just you.  

Here comes the good part:

4.  This will save the children.  After all, in this scenario they have grown up knowing all along what is going to happen on such and such a date.  The kids are free from guilt, blame and trauma, just like you.  They are raised with peaceful, rational expectations and conversations.  

5.  Knowing that on such and such a date, the privilege of living with your partner will come to an end, will you ever take them for granted?  Won't you cherish your time together even more and really make it count?  Love like you were dying, so to speak?

6. Even more importantly.  Won't you treat yourself better?  Knowing that in the end you will be responsible for your own happiness, for your own health, for your own hobbies, friendships and interests.  Won't you take better care of yourself ?  Often in marriage, one can let their individuality atrophy from lack of use.  They kind of drop it off at the alter and expect their partner to take care of it.  If you are going to wake up with just yourself one day, won't you make sure that version of yourself is really awesome to wake up to?

7.  Won't 5 and 6 teach your children how to love and respect others and themselves better than the dysfunctional lessons they learn from today's traditional marriage model?

I've run this idea past a few people.  Most of them react as if I am a "player". Like I have commitment issues. But they are wrong.  Because I truly believe that in this model of marriage, people will not only stay together longer (through re-upping) but that their level of marital happiness will be exponentially higher as well. This plan or idea does not demolish marriage, it improves it.  

I Play Pickleball

It took everything I had to walk into that huge gymnasium alone.  I clutched my stolen pickleball paddle and walked as confidently as I could across the room, towards the informational pickleball poster hanging on the cinderblock wall.  As I carefully digested the drop-in rules of that facility, a voice sounded behind me. 

 

"This isn't your game."  it said.

I turned around to see the owner of the voice. He was motioning with his paddle towards the group he was playing with.  The rule I had just read, Rule #4,  stated: Observe the games in progress to determine which group best matches your skill level. This player was making sure I clearly understood what that meant.  He was confident in his assessment of my skills, even though he had never before laid eyes on me.

I must have looked like a total newbie.  I was.  I'm guessing my Chuck Taylors were the giveaway. If you are new to pickleball, you should know....Chuck Taylors aren't exactly court shoes, especially if they are covered in glitter. 

Fortunately there were more voices in the gym that night.  Someone else a few courts away called out "Put your paddle down here!"  Whatever that meant.  I made my way across the room to a pile of paddles on the floor, trying to casually spin-toss-catch my paddle as I went.  Yes, my paddle was stolen, but only in the sense that it belonged to a former boyfriend.  I had never given it back after the break up.  

And that is how I met my pickleball family. 

In just a couple months, it will be four years since I walked into that gym all by myself.  Not only was "alone" a new thing for me at the time, being divorced for just a little while, but sports were new to me then as well. That's why it took everything I had to walk into that gymnasium.  

But what it took is nothing in comparison to what it has given back. It has given me play. And boy did I need play.  Sometimes you have to go back, before you can go forward. I needed to go back to that sandlot (which in my neighborhood was the street)  where I played ball until the street lights came on.  Then it was inside for some dinner before heading out again, this time for capture the flag. 

Photo credit: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/202028733255230469/

When we play we recreate.  We re-create.  Life continually puts us in situations that require us to do such.  Either re-create or break, baby. It's your choice.  I choose the former.  I choose to learn and laugh.  To push myself mentally and physically.  To adjust...and heal.  And I choose to do these things in good company.  In other words, I choose to play. 

If you choose that as well,  I hope you pick something like pickleball.  Something that is accessible to a vast participant group (One of my favorite rallies to date included a player 40 years younger than me and another one, 20 years older).  I hope you pick something social, where the time and space between players and plays just so happens to be the same amount of time and space needed to build comradery.  Simply put, it's like a support group, only with paddles. 

And just so you know: "this isn't your game" guy?  We are now good friends. 

 

Before I Broke Your Heart

 

Before I broke your heart

Our sentences 

Would gradually fade

Into gentle smiles and thoughtful gazes.

The words that we thought we'd say

Appeared instead as silent sighs of “oh...there you are. I've been looking for you."

No, we wouldn't finish speaking

But these moments,

The ones that felt like peanut butter whiskey

Said it all.

What was it we were going to say, any way?

These moments 

Before I broke your heart, 

I miss the most.

Loneliness Potato

You know how sometimes you have a problem and you need to say it out loud, but not because you need someone to solve it? You just want to be heard?  Well, I have one of those problems.  

I'm lonely.

Ew! You're not supposed to say that out loud.  It means you're a loser, right?  Well, I'm not so sure. 

Obviously, it would be nice if it were solved.  I mean, nobody wants to be lonely. But I don't want it to be solved by anyone's penis or anyone's empty promises.  I've been there and done that. I even have the t-shirt.  Literally.

But before I go racing off to some social media site to fill this need, or even worse, a dating app, let's come to some kind of consensus first:  Is lonely even a problem?

My answer is: not yet.  Like most other situations, something only achieves "problem" status when it reaches a certain mass.  Hunger isn't a problem, unless it goes on too long.  Not doing your dishes isn't a problem, unless it goes on too long, etc.  So, no.  Loneliness isn't a problem.  Yet.

If you are trying to decide if you have a problem, whether it's loneliness or hunger, you have to ask the question: can you end it?  That's really the defining factor of problemhood.  Is there a solution and can you implement it?  If the answer is yes, then you don't have a problem.  You have a situation.  You have an opportunity.  You are basically, alive.  

So now that we've cleared that up, I guess I really don't have a loneliness problem.  Because I can easily end it.  It's more like I have a loneliness...potato.  There's so much I can do with it, and it's completely up to me!  Fry it, mash it, bake it. Or I can do nothing at all and just wait for those little sprouty things to pop up. 

For now, I feel okay with just letting it be.   It's amazing how one deep breath and one step back can de-fang so many a monster.  

Thank you, Sarah Silverman, for helping with this particular fang extraction.  On a recent podcast she addressed a listener's break-up angst with this advice: 

"I think you should work on being alone. Being your own best friend. You can't be alone for a week?  Then you are not ready for a healthy relationship right now.  You gotta become your own best friend. Get comfortable with that. You're talking to a woman who went from relationship to relationship to relationship, but this last time I was single for maybe two years and it was a real gift because I really fell in love with being alone and realized about myself that I need to be alone for long periods of time every day and that I like myself and I, ya know, I would come home and be like "whatta ya' wanna do tonight, me?" And I did it; exactly what I wanted to do. Pretty uh...it's kind of a revelation.  So maybe work on that.  That's what I say.  Work on your shit first, be happy being alone.  Put yourself together first, and then have a relationship."   

Listen for yourself!  Go to time marker 27:32 and see what you think: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4etbUMD9R8   

What We Need to Know

We need to know that no matter how big of a mess we make, there will be at least one person in our life who won't just "be there", but who will actually FEEL there.

What I Learned from Goo-Goo Dolls

The best concert that I ever attended has got to be the Novell Brainshare 2007 concert in Salt Lake City, Utah.  It featured the Goo Goo Dolls.  But if the Goo Goo Dolls ever heard me say this, I bet they would have to pause for at least a moment.  During that pause they would be debating if they even played Salt Lake in '07.  Not because they were too stoned to remember or anything like that, but because for performers...I imagine it had to be the most boring audience ever assembled.  At Brainshare '07 they played to an arena full of 20,000 mega-geeks, half of which I think spoke math better than they did English.

It was surreal to sit there while Rzeznik and the boys busted out their amazing repertoire on stage just to look around and see a room full of people idly watching as if a quartet were playing Mozart.  It was such an un-rock concertish way to respond to what was happening.  I really thought the band would lose their energy and the show would die.  BUT...

Rzeznik kept playing and singing like the house was hoppin' and all of his best friends were there pumping their fists.  I was in awe.   I was also in heaven, because with me were my oldest children.
This was their first rock concert.  I thrive on getting to watch their firsts.  They've been GGD fans ever since. 

Parenthetically, John Rzeznik, the lead singer of the band, originally was not the lead singer.  He was too shy.  This fact makes his energy in the face of such hardened party-poopers that night, even more respectable. 

So what did I learn from Goo Goo Dolls?  

Don't let the audience dictate your performance.   

Everything You Own, Owns You Back a Little Bit

One way or another, this picture to the left probably looks familiar to you.  If you are lucky, it will bring back fond memories of watching Snoopy and Woodstock retrieve a ping-pong table for Thanksgiving dinner. If you are not so lucky, it may hit closer to home.  It may be home.

I recently helped a friend sort through two storage units that looked pretty similar to this. They had been collecting dust (and rent) for years.  No pun intended, it was a weighty experience.  

Weighty because of the significant time and physical expenditure involved, and weighty because of the mental and emotional toll as well.   As the lock came off the door and it rolled out of the way, I knew immediately that I had to take a backseat role.  I would be there for support; to "grab that end while I grab this one". I could help with the lifting, but my friend had to do all the driving.  This was his "stuff journey" and it started well before I came into the picture.

Two days and two swept-clean storage units later, I came away from the experience even more convinced than I was before that everything you own, owns you back a little bit.  Possessions possessed possess. That is why we call it a vacation when we go away.  We vacate, abandon, and relinquish not just our jobs and daily responsibilities, but the ties to our other obligation ...our things.
And boy does it feel good! Anchors aweigh!

Think about it.  When you buy something, you agree to give up things you already own for that new thing: Your money and your space.  You sacrifice for it. It has taken something from you.  But it goes deeper than that... then you have to care for it: Clean it, store it, insure it, and nowadays...update it.  Heaven forbid you have to relocate.  Then you have to pack and move it.

What if a new "need" comes along and requires the space that your old "want" is taking up?  Like a crib or a work table?  Then you have to go through the mental exercises of lament or compromise or maybe even resentment.  I have done that before and it's a workout.

So this Christmas, instead of gifts, I am giving experiences.  I realize that this is a total Grandma-move and that yes, I am being that Grandma.  I am spending just as much money on my lovelies, but I am not burdening them with things.  They will get life instead.  Memories, interactions, etc.  December 26th will come and they will awake with happiness and freedom, instead of happiness and burdens.  Well, that's the plan at least.

"The wisdom of nature continues to teach humanity that the material...is immaterial."  -Jason Versey

Pee You Later

As a category 3 germaphobe, the advent of the self-flushing toilet was significant to me.  Sure, I had long since mastered the one-legged-foot flush but now not even the bottom of my shoe had to touch the toilet.  Brilliant! Or at least that's what I thought.  As awesome as these fecal-focused feats of technology are, it has become apparent to me that we need to change at least one thing; voice activation instead of motion activation. Here's why: You know how sometimes after you have done everything on your part to "close the deal" but it’s still not flushing so you’re waving your hand in front of it and pushing things that look like they should be buttons but they’re not buttons and before you know it you realize that you have touched the toilet way more than you ever touched a manual one? Clearly, no matter how many times you reenact the lifting of your tooshie off the seat for the sensor device, motion activation isn't the most reliable approach.  And you can't just leave.  You can't just abandon shit, so to speak.  You have to stay. So what I'm saying is let's make them voice-activated. When you are ready to wrap things up you could just turn around and say “get out of here”, or “it’s go time” or “bye”. "Pee you later?"

I think it would be a good change; and quite empowering too. Just think of how accustomed we'd become to telling crap to get out of lives.  Because frankly, turning our toosh to the problem can be too oblique; too passive.  Sometimes to avoid being 'stalled in the stall', we just need to assert ourselves, take action, say what needs to be said and hear what needs to be heard.  Kerplush!  Time to move on.

Gravy Baby

We did a lot of shopping yesterday morning.  Jumping into the car just to go and grab one or two items at the market; only to return an hour later to grab one or two more. It  probably looked a little schizo to some people.  OCD to others.  But it was time to create and our errands were to us as the thumb is to the artist.  Details, vision; a little more of this here, a little dab of that there....

That's how you get ready for Thanksgiving dinner when family is coming over.  You prepare the canvas with aromas and sounds, flavors and illumination.  And then you sit back and wait for the medium to arrive, and they do.

A pile of coats no sooner builds up on a chair in the den than the hues of each individual begin to blend, compliment and contrast with each other.  Laid out.  Trusting. The space fills rapidly... but at the same time, love allows it to expand. Yes, love will ensure there's room for every different palette and brush stroke, where expectations would have otherwise stifled.  The coats soon end up on the floor because the desk chair is now needed at the table.

In the end you don't see, but you hear the masterpiece... and it sounds a lot like laughing.

 "Good art is art that allows you to enter it from a variety of angles and to emerge with a variety of views."    -Mary Schmich, American Journalist