I've been wanting to blog again. I'm missing that form of communication, even as I've kept up my steady private reflection, in my diaries.
I'd forgotten, until I reviewed the last entry, made over a year ago, that I'd already announced that the original purpose of this blog had come to fruition: I'd come to decide that while I admire the sentiments of people who proudly say, "Divorce isn't in our vocabulary", it needed to be in ours. It needed to have been in it much earlier. This blog was meant to help me come to a decision about whether what was wrong in our marriage was my fault, and if I could correct it if it was. It saw me through making that decision, and then implementing it. It saw me through physically separating, and then finally complete the legal process not quite 2 years ago--basically it was a 7-or-so year process if the time it took to come to a decision is factored in. We were living separately for 5 years before finalizing.
The blog had other functions and gifts, besides processing my divorce and the decision leading to it. Blogging about the divorce helped me to consider the dynamics of the personalities involved, and to realize that there did seem to be a repeating pattern, as if there were a basic template, which influences the shapes of the overlays of experience and people that manifest, mandala-like.
I've described my understandings of these in my personal writings. But I'm out of practice in blogging, and find myself a little "tongue"-tied. My solution will be to publish some excerpted material in my journals, which touch on some of those understandings I've gained, but haven't quite integrated:
Got a message from Gary today saying he was bringing the dog
back too. Something about needing a “break”
from animals, children, ‘my mom’. A
couple of responses inside to that.
Gratitude that I am free from anything having to do with these years in Gary’s mother’s life, where she appears to be hardening into the hints she gave
before of her character—which felt toxic to me then and time has shown to be
just that. By the fruits you shall know
them. I recognized the fruits long ago
that were in a more latent phase (plausibly deniable), but have developed the
way they appeared to be going to me all those years ago. Gary refused to see it then and only blamed me
as being ‘mean’ to his mother, even if at other times, such as after having her
over for dinner or something, he’d comment on how ‘gracious’ I’d been to her. But his internal narrative reads, despite the
evidence to the contrary, that I was the aggressor in that I saw her as what
she was, and it ran counter to her own narrative. She never forgave me for that, and continues
to demonstrate that by badmouthing me in front of my sons. (which also demonstrates a total lack of
regard for the feelings of her own grandsons, who apparently she doesn’t
recognize as hers…she sees them only
as ‘mine’, both of which objectify
them and therefore she does not truly love them—for what is love but a taking someone
for who they are, as opposed to only accepting them if they do
pleasing/appeasing things for those who are supposed to love them
unconditionally? She reveals herself now more
obviously—before it seemed only I could see it...
And without my presence
there is no way that can be impugned to somehow me ‘making’ her act that way—it is clear that she is only who she
is. Sam and my sons can see her for herself. Just like Trump’s own behavior speaks for
itself. (It can’t be blamed on a liberal
media: He does things that break the norms of what has been considered to be honorable behavior. The media reports it.) If the truth is not flattering to the Trump
administration, then it is branded as liberal fake news by Trump and
supporters. At this last portion of her life, Gary's mother’s
behaves blatantly in the ways I foresaw she would. She’s a small woman.
And, it is a relief, to not have to be dealing with her in
the face of Gary’s inability to set boundaries with her and attempts to appease
her. That would be torture to be living
through without Gary’s support. I don’t
believe he would have given it to me, though sometimes he kind of leans on me
for support in the face of her behavior and nastiness. He cannot deny that she is very difficult and
demanding. Had he and I truly been able
to be allies in that, I could have been a meaningful help and comfort to him as
he deals with the unpleasant parts of her aging (which to me seems like only an
intensification of parts of her that were unpleasant in younger years too). This of course would have required that he
have the freedom to see his mother’s behavior objectively and concur with the
reality that it wasn’t really normal behavior.
He seemed unable to see it for what it was, or to sustain seeing-it-for-what-it-was. Instead, he saw me,
and my seeing-it-for-what-it-was as evidence of deep wrongdoing in me.
Fun and Games—reggae
Great music
playing.
I’ve just
started to feel kind of rested, having a week away from the responsibilities of
parenting—like the juggling of schedules with tennis, the deadline to get him
to school in the morning and having to calculate it against prevailing
conditions (heavy traffic on Barkerstown Rd and no Hillberry Rd alternative)—it’s a
bit of a tax on my energy to have those details to contend with daily in
addition to the effort to get him up and have him behave properly when he’s
tired and irritable. Then the whole
homework and grade-monitoring responsibility.
Scott, I love you and giving you what you
need is worth the extra effort it may cost me.
Forgive my need to be honest with myself and acknowledge that it does cost me something, and know that I
am grateful to have you to make this effort on behalf of. In other words I’d so much rather have you
than to not-have the love-obligation to do right by you, even if it means I may
stretch my comfort zone. I’m grateful
for you.
Good music.
4/2/17
Sunday
1327
Scott will be
coming home soon so I think I’ll use the remaining time to relax a bit…maybe
reserve the vacuuming until later.
I need to
write the Colorado family to let them know I will be there, most likely with
Scott, and will there be a place to stay and would they like to come to the
performance?
Inge came
over for breakfast and left at straight-up noon. I called my parents then, but they were just
beginning to eat. So they called back at
about 1225 or so; I called them back around 1230 and then we were on the phone
maybe 40 minutes. So I am taking a
break, before Scott comes home.
It’s always
such an interesting visit with Inge; she really calls to my inner intellect, and
I find myself making connections and associations I may not have
otherwise.
I made a
parallel, that is...
Oh, man, this
is the funniest bluegrass song. I’ve got
to get the name of it, and the crew that sings it. Chris Jones
and the Nightdrivers –Wolfcreek Pass
The parallel
I made I attribute to my cousin Lavender Luz . She has made Open Adoption her life's work and has published some very powerful posts about adoption from the point of view of the adoptee. An important concept she explains so well is the unique complication for the adoptee of having a "split between their biography and their biology."
I realized there was a similarity
between the adopted child having a split between biology and biography with the
person who is gay or transgender. They each have a burden that is intensified by virtue of being who they
are. By virtue of being adopted, an
adoptee has been shaped by other factors and demands that a person who was not
adopted doesn’t have, and doesn’t have to even have as a consideration. I was working a bit my theory that the plight
of the adoptee is similar to the rest of humanity (which must ask itself a
question about its own belonging) with an important exception: a history where for whatever
reason a person cannot live with his/her own biological parents. Understanding the effects that fact would
have on an organism sheds a greater understanding on what all humans need. Knowing the experience that must be created
for these children in order to shield them from the effects of having been
abandoned (from their perspective) by their parents, one learns that the need isn’t peculiar to
adoptees—we all need it; but their particular biological/biographical split
highlights that need. It highlights what
must be supplied, and it hints that even people who don’t have that split may
experience other events that mimic, in a lesser way, the experience of having
been not wanted. Actions have
consequences and effects. An adoptee who
was lucky enough to have a family that gave him/her the experience of being
deeply loved and connected-with can basically heal that split so fully that
it’s as if the split had never happened.
A family, or its circumstances, can have experiences that leave their
biological child feeling abandoned—that is, having abandonment at the core of
being.
Allison Krause Whiskey Lullaby
There’s the
experience. And of course, there is the
organism itself—how he/she interacts with the experience. I suppose my charged issue is about perfection; that
I took to heart the overt and covert demands of my culture and parents, for
perfection. And I realized I could not
do it. The next logical step was a demand to pretend
that I could, and a belief comes from that that there is something unacceptable
which must be erased—my deep sense of failure came from my failure to erase the
unacceptable. Feeling critical of my
parents was one of those unacceptables.
Failing to please them was the first of the unacceptables. Feeling angry with them when I failed to
please them and they were angry with me was another of the unacceptables. Being unable to change the feelings inside
that caused me to do things that displeased them was unacceptable and I felt
very trapped.
I think that's it for today.
