Hugs? Goals?

I officially hate hugs. But just like many official things, that is not true as good portion of the time.

I have a non-hug friend that I hug when she is not having a good day. She is older than me and is just learning about managing moods with the help of the American Pharmacological Companies. She doesn’t cry a whole lot – I couldn’t really be close friends with someone who did, but I do not mind her hug. If you’re reading this, you can know I don’t mind you and your hugs.

I hate it when people come up to me and say, “You look like you need a hug.” My response? “You look like you need to swim with the fishes with cement slippahs.” I know a woman who demands a daily hug from her boss. He complies, but he is like me – stiff, and unwanted touch only makes us stiffer. Once I was sobbing, pregnant and overwrought. Same person took me, grabbed me and said “you’ll be alright.” This offended me when it happened eight years ago, and although I forgive her – she is good friends with my husband – I still taste the bile.

I spend a lot of time with paper these days. I started out scrapbooking, and although I have not abandoned it I’m working on cards and expanding work further. I like paper. I am earning some money from it. I am not a super talented paper-crafter or visual artists. I have taken classes and learned a ton, but there is no special talent bestowed upon me. I want to hop back on the blogger bandwagon. I would be doing well if I worked on my book. I’ve told my new therapist three separate times how my old therapist recommended that I set my writing goal to one sentence a day. I think that was the most offensive thing any one ever told me. Although the bile remains, I know now that most of her bipolar clients probably would have a lot of trouble writing a sentence. My new therapist says I do better than most of her patients. I don’t lie on the couch watching t.v. all day like many of them. Sometimes I do just that – I eat cheetos and chocolate and drink ice tea, but that is once every three months or so. It makes me happy to hear I am in good shape. Perhaps that is the problem with my old therapist and me. She was dealing with acutely disabled patients and I have only been described as such once. That was back in my homicidal/suicidal days. I got the right meds and those thoughts went away. I still have ups and downs, but they are not as down as I would ever need to be for one sentence to be a reasonable goal. I wrote her a “why I’m not going to see you anymore” letter but need to write it on something other than butterfly stationary. I have impulse control sometimes. I exercise poor judgment.

But I can do that while writing more than a sentence a day. Not this sentence:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it ws the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going directly to Heaven, we were all going the other way.”

The thing about prescription medication

I’ve been off kilter lately so I’ve had quite a few conversations with myself. When things get intense, we talk about tough stuff, like prescription medication. Whitney probably died because of some trouble with her prescription medication, and we know Michael did. Ya know what? I was right there with them. My doctor specifically said the only reason I didn’t go was because it, “wasn’t (my) time”.

Months later I recognize that it’s like I’ve gone through a dangerous initiation. Let’s say I did take the “I” tablets three times a day and the “I” pills twice. (That would be three times the prescribed dose) Top it off with some “A” or a glass of wine and that would be it. If there was an investigation they wouldn’t be able to tell if it was a suicide or a homicide. If I were famous there would be a great outcry against psychiatry and psychiatrists in general, even if the problem lies with me. Do I need to be less responsible for myself? Is it possible for me to be more?

I honestly don’t know. It’s 8:25 and I am exhausted. I pretty much made cards all day, with a quick trip to TJ’s. A friend, who ordered a dozen, is having a lot of trouble with her gastric bypass stuff. She likes giraffes and ordered a dozen cards so I will be back on the giraffe wagon. When I last talked to a banker he asked what my occupation was. I thought about it for a minute before I told him, “artist.” This year alone I’ve been “writer” “therapist” and now “artist”. All of them sound pretty cool. I say this so as to warn you: I am not pretty cool. I’m wearing green and pink snowflake pajamas at eight o’clock on a Saturday night. I am getting a sore throat, too. But enough of all my complaining.

Why I am Not Running Away

This is a draft of a letter I am going to send to my (ex) therapist. Please leave feedback in comments.

J -
Thanks for calling me back the other day. I am sorry about the mis-communication regarding our last meeting. I hope to straighten things out a bit.

I suppose I’ll start from the end. I felt judged many times in our sessions and perhaps I should have been more forthcoming about that. Being told you did not want me to “run away” from my problem was a highly judgmental statement. I am not running away from anything, I just feel like our relationship has not been as nourishing as counselor and therapists could be. During sessions I spent a lot of time waiting for you to say something that felt New-Agey. I respect your beliefs but I do not share them and often felt proselytized. I feel that, if I have a spiritual issue I will discuss it with a pastor or even just a friend from my church. The more I thought about it I did feel offended by our last session, not for the sake of my own views, but the idea that we’re all worshiping one God and all headed to the same place. If Christians believe they are going to a place where the streets are paved with gold, they cannot have a life looking forward to reincarnation, as Hindus do. Muslims and Christians do share a similar version of heaven, but the same cannot be said of Buddhists. I think my comment about Buddhism being an atheist religion was what spurred our discussion. I should have said Buddhism is a non-theistic religion. I read recently that, for those of the Buddhist faith, there is no need for God when you have Enlightenment. This concept is not found in other belief systems. I remembering you said once that we will all return to the earth. This reminds me of Wiccan teachings, a religion I once explored. While Muslims believe something like coming from and returning to the earth, I think it is incongruous to believe in all belief systems and allow all of us to ultimately to arrive at the same place.

I often felt on edge during our times together. I didn’t (and perhaps do not) have the tools to address that, but I frequently felt uneasy during our sessions. It seemed like you were ready to try to solve things or assumed you knew things about me that (I hope) were not true. One time I came in with news about my old “enemies” who are doing quite well. Your comment, “Don’t you hate that?” was premature. Other responses felt like pat answers to, what I considered, difficult or complicated issues. I spoke about it with you then, in fact I addressed it then, but again, I didn’t feel like I could bring in issues like that.

As far as processing all of this, I have spoken at length with my husband. I do not feel it would be necessarily or valuable to spend an hour going over these things again. I hope you do not feel cheated by this. I hold nothing against you personally and wish you the best. I did often find your work to be insightful and know you are a popular, caring therapist, but ultimately I believe that we are probably better fitted to other working relationships. I wish you the best.

Malakoa.

Being Loved (G)

I got hurt and ticked off by L today. (We’re calling her LN now because we know another L.) Mostly, I was hurt. She had every right to do and say what she did, so I can’t blame her, but still. I do. I will pray and it will pass. I think she likes to put herself in a position of being taken advantage of. When the person realizes how much she is giving, she might try to extend some kind of hand or reciprocity. It is not met warmly. She will obviously be angry, but will not take herself out of the power suite. She has the upper hand, and she will keep it that way.

Like so many of my friends and family members say, in a matter of words, “It’s time to drop L.”

I am ready to do that.

I talked to good old Greenegem of Dare to DISCIPLE fame. (http://greenegem.wordpress.com/) She said, “I mean, I don’t want a friend who doesn’t love me. yk?”

Good advice and well spoken. This doesn’t mean that I have to stay away from new friends, but that I will limit my inner circle to those who actually care about me. I do know such people, after all. I have great friends that love me the most here in my city. It says in the Bible that “Love keeps no records of wrong.” I believe those real friends don’t. Even if I’m the most offensive, greedy person at all, they might say something (and I hope they do) but they won’t hold it against me. At least not for very long.

***
GIVING I
Had breakfast with another L today. Let’s call her LS. She made me a Latin American meal. I’m having her first grade son over here to do math and play in our bounce house this afternoon. She and I are just getting to know each other, but I think we’re going to be good friends. She’s funny and smart and receives as easily she gives.

They don’t grow up too fast (PG)

Small’s birthday party is tomorrow.  My dad arrives today.  I spent yesterday cleaning, mostly because I wanted a good, clean house two days in a row.  The clutter has already taken over, so I have very little to show for the two days of hard, unpleasant work.  At least the banister is clean.  The bathrooms need cleaning again.  I will work on putting things together, for the sake of my dad.

I have ten RSVPs for the birthday party, not including the parents that are coming to supervise.  (Good thing it’s only ten, I only have 14 gift bags.)  Parents that stay have a point.   It’s a pool party, and even though we have a lifeguard I’ve never bought they were a part of a safety plan.  Maybe if  I ever saw one do anything more than kick teenagers out of the kiddie pool I would feel differently.  We’re also driving to the pizzeria after our allotted swim time.  Some people don’t want their kids driving in other people’s cars.

She is going to be seven.  It seems so old.  She’s already not a baby anymore, she’s a kid.  It hasn’t gone so fast as people warned me.  I think it’s for two reasons.  #1, I practiced a lot of attachment parenting.  She slept with me most of the time and I carried her in a moby wrap while she was a baby and an ergo carrier when she got to be a toddler.  (I used that until she was too heavy for me.  It works up to 90 pounds, though.  The ergo helped a lot on cranky days.  I’d pop her in the back and she was mostly quiet and content after that.)  #2 I was right there with her most of the time.  I have the luxury and privilege of being a mostly stay  at home mom.  What ever jobs I had were only an hour/few hours a stretch.  I did take much needed breaks, she was an active, spirited child, and I ‘m not a perfect mom.  Often I was an inattentive mom.  There were days she woke up looking stretched out – as if she was two inches taller.  However, time didn’t slip by.  Some days were long, a few were short, but I mostly got to be right there, watching her grow up.

Knowing she is probably my first and last has made me parent and observe more intently.  I am sure that my friends with four, five + kids are still attentive to them, but it must be different.  I don’t choose who gets to pick the story.  I make whatever she wants for breakfast.  You can’t carry twins in an ergo.  Of course these memories are nostalgia.

Is Small spoiled?  I always saw a spoiled kid as one that didn’t accept the final word of their parents.  We were in a yogurt shop with a lot of gumball machines.  This little girl came in begging her mom for a toy from the machine.  She was yelling, asking over and over again and mom said, “no” several times.  Mom ordered the yogurt and got her change.  Then she gave the money to her daughter to let her get whatever she liked from the machine.  ”No” did not mean “no”, it meant keep whining and I’ll let you do whatever you want.  I don’t want to judge her, but I am a judgmental person, and I saw that as spoiling the child.  We make every effort not to do things like this and we don’t listen to whining.

I’m not done raising Small, and I guess in some ways I never will be.  This blog is not intended to be a parenting manual, even though it may seem like it, lately.  I have a friend, T, who requested parenting information, so here you go!  If there is anything else any of you want me to write about, drop me a note or leave a comment and I will do so.

will the real Malakoa please stand up? – PG

The question was posted, “Do you blog anonymously or as “yourself”? why?”

My name is Malakoa. I write anonymously.  Malakoa is “milk” in Russian. I love the sound of that word and I love breast-feeding. I nursed Small just shy of two years and I would have done longer but I was told my milk was riddled with psychotropic medication.

My family is identified only by their first initials and, although I frequently identify friends with initials, often they are pulled from the sky. I have a few friends who read the blog, and sometimes I want to talk about them and I don’t want them to know it’s them I’m talking about.

I feel like it is necessary to write anonymously, even secretly, because of the stigma behind my illnesses. When you hear of a bipolar person it’s the jerk who molested and drowned the little boy and stuffed him in a clothes dryer. There are a myriad of bipolar folks that do extraordinary things (Winston Churchill, anyone?) but there are even more that just go to work, come home, take their meds and drop by Ross to buy 12 pairs of shoes every now and then.

ADD is one of those things people don’t really believe exist. Adults can’t have it, that’s for sure. Kids get it because of bad parenting and too much soda. Such generalizations keep me from opening up about having ADD, although it is the illness I’m the most “out” about. I tell people I’m ADD in order to explain my sometimes erratic behavior. I have yet to do so with bipolar.

OCD is last because in some ways it’s the worst. It is the most commonly joked about and probably the least understood of the three. I don’t wash my hands a million times a day. I don’t have an immaculate house that I am tortured to keep that way. I obsess upon things – boys, men, shoes, hair color, certain foods, paper crafting, friends, slights, decades old fights. My mind grips a hold of them and will not let go. I want certain things in order, but this one is not so hard for me. If there are three brushes tossed on the bathroom counter, I will line them up parallel to each other. I usually don’t step on cracks in the sidewalk. There are other things, too, but this is a PG post so I won’t talk about the graphic images, etc that attach themselves to me and will not let go.

I know by keeping all this hidden I only add to the stigma. I’m not ashamed of being bipolar or of having the other two illnesses. Some day I do hope to go public. I write speeches in my head as to what I will say and the reactions I hope I get. I think there will be a time when I am ready for that. I’m not prepared to be judged with the guise of bipolar. (Oh, she’s bipolar, we can’t trust her to do anything important.) I am willing to help people, even in real life, with anything having to do with the brain and it’s intricacies. What I am not prepared for is for people who have secretly struggled with depression their whole lives to criticize me and tell me that bipolar isn’t real – that I’m lazy and self-indulgent. Well, I can be both lazy and self-indulgent, I’m often fun and perceptive. I also have a major psychiatric illness.

All that happened today

It’s a blog, I can afford to be self-indulgent. I did very little today. I watched the end of “Eat, Pray, Love” which did very little for me. There was nothing about it to recommend, except a desirable Brazilian man. It’s rare to hear the word “Brazilian” any more when it doesn’t have to do with making a grown woman’s pee pee look like a slow developing twelve year old girl. I saw him; I heard it. But it’s not worth the hours you need to watch to get to him.

I went to get Small for lunch today. It’s my new habit. She was throwing away her bag lunch. She really wanted to eat school lunch. We didn’t like the expense (actually, I didn’t mind it, how does $2.00 break the bank?) and didn’t like the meals that continually featured french fries and other “bad” things. I suggested I bring her home for lunch. B and Small practically cheered at the suggestion. So now I have my day sliced in half.

I set an alarm to remind me to go get her. I peel her away from her place in the lunch line and we come home. Today she had rigatoni with marinara sauce and two glasses of milk. No real veggies and fruits. But better. She says she likes it better because she gets to spend more time with me. I will try to love this as it lasts.

After lunch I walk her back. This is where the drama began. I can’t tell you exactly what happened: I promised her I wouldn’t. It had to do with the girl she gave the “BFF” 1/2 necklace last week. As I said, I can’t tell you the details, but it involved…. never mind, I promised I wouldn’t.

Shortly after school we went over to T’s house. T is a luscious, red haired sixty-something woman who happens to be one of my best friends. T is easy to spend three hours on her back porch swapping stories. She and three of her old-lady friends are putting a show on for the talent show and she asked me to direct. (Which I believe was merely a scheme to get me out of the house.) I was the most best of all directors in the whole world and made a grand total of three suggestions. They were adorable.

(I also know T is an avid reader of my blog. Much of what I said above was for her benefit. It also is true.)

Then, it became time for T to give away many of her worldly goods. I wound up with a whole bunch of beautiful things, purple runners, plates bowls. I could give a laundry list of all her beautiful cast offs, but I will not. You would probably be, (a) disinterested, or (b) jealous.

We met my mother for dinner at a chain Chinese restaurant. I was starving, as I ran out of “Weight Watcher’s Plus, Plus Points” so I’ve been eating vegetables, and couldn’t find any more of them on the black market. I guess I just don’t know the right people, or the right websites. There are some “Canadian” sites, but I don’t trust anything not made in the States.

Later my mom and I went to Sally Beauty and found a new haircolor for me. I am pretty tired of being 35 and being dissatisfied with the way I look. I’ve always had very good hair – thick, coarse, wavy. For some reason the last two years I’ve been obsessing over it. I change my hair color every 2-3 months. I like it red. It was an orangey color that I loved loved loved that no one else did. I feel like I have red hair, something in my soul has red hair and I don’t feel like myself without it. My natural color is slightly tinged with red.

We walked in to the shop and my daughter immediately walked to the hair swatches and said, “This one is mine.”  Upon closer inspection, she had found a color exactly the color of her hair.  Maybe she has a career as a colorist in her future.

My mom helped me find my latest color.  It promises to be a gold/red color, but I don’t know when I am going to apply it.  It’s frustrating and exciting to wait.  I want good color for my daughter’s birthday party because there are going to be pictures.  I can’t stand the dark purpley color I have right now.  I know it’s not about me, but to be honest, I believe most peoples world’s are about themselves.

We came home and Small was beside herself with tears.  She was acting very upset, in fact she was acting like she was sick.  No fever.  Was sad.  She kept going over and over again that she, “didn’t get anything.”  I thought she meant T’s Grand Give-Away.  Small had played with a kaleidoscope there and was disappointed she didn’t get to take it home.  I thought that was it.  (This is not an attempt to get you to give the kaleidoscope to Small.  Do not give your kaleidoscope away, please.)

Sure, that was a part of it but the real deal was what happened at school.  Not only did she feel things were unfair, she also felt betrayed.  When I think about my life as a little girl, I have memories and I still feel this sting of betrayal, sometimes.  I wonder if she senses that I am just a few steps away from feeling like that again.

Anyway, she is in bed now, sleeping.  I wrote through “Sherlock” and I’m writing through “Freaks and Geeks”. I am not smart of enough to identify with Sherlock nor humble enough to identify with Dr. Watson.  I didn’t have good enough friends to identify with any Freak or Geek.

Enough until tomorrow

From Sherlock:

“You don’t seem very afraid”
“You don’t seem very frightening.”

A birthday party – indulge me – PG

Been a little sad for the last few days.  I’m not sure why.  Maybe all this vehemence that I pour in to my blog gets to me.  Maybe I’m just tired.  I took a long nap this afternoon preparing for a 5 o’clock swim date with Small’s friend and then they canceled because their infant is sick.  I wouldn’t have napped, I would have saved up the sleep and gone to bed at seven.  This is something I’ve been known to do.  My parents hate it.

My husband’s step-father is having his 80th birthday party in August.  B’s sister is flying in.  I don’t know where the rest of his kids are, but I’ll bet they were invited.  We were not told about it.  B says not to take it to mean something.  I am trying not to – but why not even mention it?  I’ve spoken to his mother specifically about plans in August and the party didn’t come up even in passing.  Her husband’s eightieth birthday didn’t come up.  I don’t talk to her all that often – it’s just not the way our (good, I thought) relationship works.  I don’t know if we’d be able to go to the party or not, but why not make it our choice?  I hate it when people try to make decisions for someone else.  Let other people create their own boundaries.  Let me create mine.

My daughter and I eat too much bread.  She is the one person whom I must impose my will on her choices.  Her choices are mine, right now, although I still try and give her the space to decide trivial things.  I don’t want her to be unable to decide about bigger things later in life and I want her to be able to assert herself when it comes to choosing a restaurant or a date.

 

 

It has nothing to do with you

Mr. Malakoa thinks it funny to snap for me to come over to him.  My mother does not.  Mr. Malakoa and I have been married more than six years, not a great amount of time, but long enough for her to say something about this.

She never has.  Until today.  Mr. Malakoa wanted to show me something on the computer so he called out, “Serving Wench” and snapped.  I’m not crazy about the snapping but don’t mind the Serving Wench.  It’s clearly a joke, albeit one that is not funny.

Today, my mother was in the kitchen and she told me, “Does he know how utterly objectionable that is?  It’s sexist and…”  She went on quite a while.

I said to her, “Why don’t you go tell him?”

At that point I broke and went in to talk to him about it.  My mother followed.  She told him what she told me, and said, “Maybe someday I can find it is funny, but having lived through the times when people  did that seriously, I’m not at the point that I can.”

What did I do right?  I told her to do it herself.

What did I do wrong?  I went and talked to him anyways.

I came close to drawing a line but didn’t do it.  It’s not a big deal, but was better than what I would do before.  In the past I would have fallen all over myself to get him to stop and please my parents.  Mr. Malakoa has reached the point he knows he can’t please them so he doesn’t try, but I’m not there so much.  It seems like more good than bad comes from them, but according to him it’s impossible to be the right thing to them.  So he’s not doing it.  I’ll be he’ll stop with the whole “wench” thing when they are around, though.

Mr. Malakoa is the ultimate boundary setter, and some times it pisses me off.  Instead of doing something for me, like helping me make the baby’s bed, he makes me do it myself or wants to teach me how to do it.  I didn’t say I wanted to learn how to do something, I wanted him to do it with me.  He’s not for it.  And I’m stuck with this new task I don’t want to do.  (I’m half kidding.)

But let’s move on.

There is a very good chance your parents are sinners.  So are all of the people that are going to be at your Thanksgiving dinner.  I don’t have to tell you that this sort of thing brings up difficult memories – depression might come on stronger, regrets, resentments might rule the day.  If there is hard liquor there is the chance you’ll be on pins and needles waiting for the scene.   They’re all a part of the celebration.

I’m not going to say that things don’t have to be that way.  This is a good time to be in your Bible and to sing hymns and spiritual songs, but that’s not going to cure all of the past years of hurt.  There is probably a time you will come and be ready to forgive them, but if this is not the time for that, it is a waste of your heart to feel guilty about your inability to do so now.  If you’re in therapy, now is a good time to meet more often that you do know.  If you have a spouse or best friend, go shopping, or bake with them and talk about how you feel about all this stuff that went right and went wrong at holidays in the past.  If you don’t have either one, why not shoot me an email?  I can’t fix things, but I can better know how to pray for you.

One last thing – if you have a relative that beats you down, especially a parent, I want you to realize right now that you did not have the parents you deserved.  They might have been the parents that you needed, and it might be a chance for you to comfort others, but you might now be at that point, yet.  Now that I have a child of my own I cannot perceive how terribly some moms and dads treat their children.  I’m not going to go into it here because I don’t want you to have flashbacks or bring more hurt upon you, but I really want to emphasize that the verbal and physical abuse was never acceptable.  You may have made mistakes or were flat-out naughty, but you didn’t bring it upon yourself.  Take a moment and believe me, no matter what anyone else says.

My dad used to tell me, when I was a middle schooler and high school student, that you don’t choose your parents.  I believe him: Your parents are given to you, and you are given to them like a treasure.  It doesn’t mean you are treated like one, but it doesn’t stop who you are.  The parents were not your idea and their behavior, again, has nothing to do with you and everything to do with yourself.  I believe you need to obey the commandment, “Honor your mother and father,” no matter what, however difficult it is.  It’s the first command with a promise – you do so, so “all will go well with you.”  What a surprise that honoring them brings you good things in your life.

And a very last thing:  Even terrible parents can’t stop you from being all you were meant to be.  You are a wonderful person; you do have talent and you can pursue the things you desire.  It may be harder for you because of your past, but it’s entirely possible.

I have met people at the “behavioral center” that went through horrible, brutal things.  One, who was 32, told me if that thing hadn’t happened to him, he would be somebody.  His current profession was drug dealing and he had spent time in prison for hitting a police office.  He truly believed his chances were gone and his life was over.  He had received over a million dollars and was in a position most of us were dying to to have.  He didn’t need to be there.  And it’s not too late for you, either.

seeing my ex-

I had a boyfriend of almost four years. I could get a whole lot in to it but I’ll try to keep it short. My last psychiatrist had me fill out a paper listing significant relationships. When it came about to answer the question I saw that she had asked why the relationship ended. I wrote, almost without thinking, “Because he is a loser.” I stand behind that reason. He was a terrible loser.

I am not too crazy even writing about this. I get a strange feeling in my bones and I don’t like it, but I think my ‘victory in boundaries’ is worth talking about

When we broke up, he moved to Alaska to do God knows what. I suppose it’s a change of pace if it’s nothing at all. Anyway, I hadn’t seen him since and three or four years had gone by. I was in a bar and restaurant that is where the creative people gathered to drink and see people they hadn’t seen since last vacation. It was fun. I looked very cute that day, too, if I do say so myself. My hair was really curly because of the moisture in the air (like Deborah Messing in Will and Grace ) and I had this great new leather jacket I had bought myself with birthday and Christmas money. I’d leaned up because of the hills at University and didn’t carry around the baby fat in my face that I used to. My friends and I are snacking and drinking and having fun, and who walks in but him and his entourage.

I practically curl in to the fetal position. I do not want to see him and I do not want him to see me. Breaking up with him is among the told 5% of smartest things I’ve ever done. There was never any desire to see him or sleep with him after he got on that train to Alaska. I did not feel any differently now.

But I uncurled and decided, “Why not? Why should I be afraid?” I excused myself and went outside and stepped into the circle his friends were in. I shook their hands, said hello, asked them polite questions and then stopped at the Ex-Boyfriend. I held out my hand to shake it, and felt nothing. Then the conversation started.

“So what are you doing?”

“I’m still a medic.” Now, how in the world was I supposed to know that? This was before the days of Facebook where everyone was in touch with everyone else. My further questions continued,

“How long have you been doing that? How are your parents?” ridiculous questions I know, but I wanted to be nice, and I wasn’t going to have a power struggle.  People I knew were coming outside to smoke or see other friends.  They’d look over to Ex-Boyfriend and me, then gasp, and walk away.  Some of them, according to an outside source, spent years pining for me.  It kinda grosses me out.

Anyway, out of conjecture and back in to facts.  The best example of a conversation with him went like this: “How is your brother?”

“He’s about to be a father. He’s really having trouble dealing with it, it’s just-”

“That’s wonderful! Your mom must be thrilled.”

I didn’t let him rope me in to his stories of misery and the sadness of his life. I knew his brother, not really well, but enough to know he did not have a long talk with Ex-Boyfriend about his feelings regarding the birth of his child. I knew his family would open their hearts to any child they had. Ex-Boyfriend had something to say about everyone I asked about, and all of the things he said were about their tough times and misery and whatever negative stuff could say about anything horrible. It was just like old times.

Except, I didn’t let it bother me. I knew his reality was a sieve of unhappiness and co-dependency, getting rid of the good and holding on very much to the hurtful and bad. I was so relieved I was rid of him. I went inside and told my friends what had happened, although not with the same details or insights as I’ve provided here.

Soon after I came inside, he disappeared.  I have the hunch, but unverified, that we went to walk around the Arts District pretending to be a wolf.  He liked wolfs.

I was thankful and admit that I was kind of, but not really, amused by the whole thing.  Here was this guy, almost thirty, whose idea of self-preservation was to pretend to be a wild animal.  He was into shamanism and stuff like that, but really, grow up, buddy.

This was about the time that Mr. Malakoa came in to my world.  We had been to exactly one movie together, but somehow I felt that I knew he was, “The One.”  (Whatever the heck that’s supposed to mean.  Maybe I meant, “My One.”)  Anyway, seeing Ex-Boyfriend and getting a realistic glimpse of the way he is now was quite healing for me.  I had loved this guy, but didn’t now.  I felt nothing beyond the basic care and love that I have for people in general.  There was nothing left in my heart that was specially reserved for him.  He and I were really through.  I had really moved on.  And my heart (I hate this kind of writing) was open again to something real and good.  I believed that I was finding that with Mr. Malakoa, and I was right.

Things are not perfect between us, in fact there have been times we have fewer good times together than bad, but Mr Malakoa is nothing like Ex-Boyfriend.  He and I know better how to set boundaries with each other and I believe that came from some of the boundaries I learned in the previous relationship.  I have a better sense of what is unacceptable and am able to communicate with about that.   It may be that those four years of mostly unhappiness taught me about how to prevent that ca ca from happening again.  I hope so.