Optimist or Fool?

            I’ve been beaten and bruised, battered and buffeted by the wind. I’ve chosen the path across rugged terrain over and over instead of the paved path. Each time I choose, I stumble. I fall and skin my knees, scrape my palms, break my nails, bruise my soul. And then I get up. I continue on my path. I don’t look for the paved road, I wander down the overgrown, wild trail.

            Does this make me an optimist? Does this mean that even in the most difficult situations I look for the good? Am I continually believing in the challenge in the hopes that it will lead me to the place I want to be? Is this the key, do I just look for the good and disregard the bad?

            OR…am I choosing to be blind? Am I deliberately looking beyond what is common sense in the hopes that there is something else? Is my faith misplaced? 

It's Not Something I Talk About

            It caught me off guard. He knew that I was vulnerable, we had talked about it before. But, when he shoved me to the floor, I still never expected it. We had been drinking Jack Daniels all day and were both pushing one another’s buttons. We were shouting so loud the neighbors were yelling at us to shut the fuck up. And then he pushed me down. I wasn’t hurt, but I was petrified. I ran to the spare room and locked the door. He came and spoke softly to me, apologizing over and over, so I opened it and we passed out for the night.

            I thought that was it. But, it really wasn’t. He didn’t shove me again, but he scared me regularly. He was a big guy, and he would use his size to intimidate me. We would “wrestle” and I would be covered with bruises after, but it was always a “game”. When I would complain that he was hurting me, he would tell me I was a pussy. “We’re just goofing around, I’m not trying to hurt you.”

            Eventually, I believed him. I was an educated woman, from a stable family with a good job. That kind of stuff wouldn’t happen to me.

            I started to get him back. When he would get in the mood to “play”, I would pinch him hard on his inner bicep. I knew that it would hurt and leave a mark. Once he was put on blood thinners, it was easy to bruise him and feel like I had gotten him back. But he was never afraid. I was always scared that when he wrestled, he would go too far and break one of my bones.

            He thought it was funny to try to make me flinch away from him. He didn’t even have to touch me, I would pull away and then get punched in the arm, “two for flinching!” He always made it seem like a joke, it wasn’t until I was far away from the relationship that I realized I was always terrified. The man who was supposed to keep me safe from harm and make me feel secure just kept me on edge.

            For fifteen years, I thought that it was no big deal, he was just a rough person who didn’t understand boundaries, but then he did it again. We had been at a family reunion, our marriage was on the rocks, and we had fought the entire way home. I spent the several hour drive with my body pressed against the passenger side door because he was so incensed I didn’t know what he would do. Once home, while our son was playing in the other room, I went into the bedroom to continue the argument. He was lying on the bed and we started yelling. I don’t remember him moving, but he had me by the hair and all I could see was his eyes. They were black. They were chilling. I tried to pull away, and wrenched my neck, smashing my head into the wall. I heard my son’s little voice, “Mommy?”

            He released me and I grabbed my baby. “If you come anywhere near us, I will call the cops.” I don’t know if I really would have; he got up and left the house without a word, slamming the door behind him and knocking our family portrait off the wall. I put our child to bed and slept on the couch. I didn’t know if I could leave. I knew that I had to, but didn’t know how.

            A few days later, the opportunity presented itself and I took our son and moved to my parents’ house. I didn’t tell anyone what happened. It took a few months before I was able to face it, but I filed for divorce.

            I was with him just shy of fifteen years, and he only hit me twice. For almost fifteen years, I lived under a cloud of foreboding, scared of what he might do to me. If he enjoyed hurting me for fun, what could he do if he wasn’t playing? I’m lucky that I never found out.

Love

            I don’t usually do this. I keep God in my life, but quietly. Sunday’s gospel, though, was the story of the Good Samaritan; and it got me thinking about the things going on in the news lately. I think everyone knows the story, but the crux of it is: A guy gets jumped on the street and robbed. A Priest walks past, and crosses to the other side. A Very Important Person walks past, and crosses to the other side. A foreigner-someone of a different ethnicity and race than the injured person- stops, cares for his wounds, takes him to an inn and pays for his room, with promises to return and pay any remainder due on the bill.

            And there’s the moral. The guy who was different, the guy who was visiting from out of town, the guy for whom it was most inconvenient to stop, is the one who went out of his way to help. He spent his own money, his valuable time, risked the same fate happening to him as a foreigner, to help someone in need.

            There it is. How often do we notice the person beaten in the gutter? More often; do we stop? No matter your religious affiliation, all creeds endorse compassion and generosity. However, we don’t, as a society, take the time to see the argument from the other side. We’re so busy aligning with a hashtag that we don’t stop to think about the greater good. I don’t think there’s hope for us as a civilization until we can see each other beyond the hashtags. Supporting one movement shouldn’t-and doesn’t-mean that you don’t support another movement. It means that you have compassion for another person’s circumstance that may or may not be different from yours. I can stand with the oppressed and discriminated against in #blacklivesmatter while still believing that there are altruistic souls who sacrifice to keep us safe and stand with #bluelivesmatter. I won’t negate their need to be represented by screaming that we all matter, because if we all believed that, none of those hashtags would exist!

            If you’re a Christian, you preach Love. Not for some, but for all. Jesus spent an awful lot of his short time with sinners and outcasts. No religious manuscript, that I’m aware of, preaches “eliminate all people who are in any way different from yourself”. If that were the case, we’d each be alone on this earth, because as far as I can tell, each one of us is a special snowflake, contrary to Tyler Durden’s philosophies. Gandhi said that no culture can live that attempts to be exclusive. We can’t weed out the “different” and expect to survive as a race. He also said that it is easy to be friendly to your friends, but to make friends with your enemies is the heartbeat of true religion. Basically, open your eyes and your mind, and you may learn something new. A difference of opinion doesn’t have to mean the discussion is over. And, most importantly, a discussion doesn’t have to end with all parties agreeing-it just has to end without the parties trying to kill each other. When did we forget that? 

Kingmaker

They couldn’t have been more than 8 summers old.  As boys are wont to do, they had wandered into the forest, exploring the late winter landscape.  As the sun slowly lowered in the sky, they began to realize they had gotten lost.  Aachen was the one who decided they should make camp and spend the night amongst the gods of the wood.  They gathered firewood and berries, storing them in a small cleft of rock overlooking a slow-running stream.  They set a few snares, hoping to catch a rabbit or quail, and set about getting their camp in order.  As the sun slowly changed from a pale yellow to orange, to bright pink, Aachen began to prepare the fire.  He couldn’t get it started, so Varro offered to try his hand while he went to check the snares.  Flames had just begun licking at the kindling when he heard a shout.  His blood froze in his veins as a chorus of howls began in response.  Varro’s boots crunched through the underbrush as he ran toward the sounds.  The first snare was empty, but when he came upon the second, his heart leaped to his throat.  There was Aachen, hare in hand, slowly being encircled by wolves.  He did a quick count and saw there were six already ringing his foster-brother.  He could hear the footsteps of the rest of the pack coming through the leaves.

            “Aachen!  Throw them the hare!  Be quick about it!”

            Aachen swung the hare once about his head and then tossed it towards the apparent alpha.  The prize landed woefully short of its mark and the ring of canines began to close in.  The alpha sniffed at the offering and eyed Aachen.  The ring began to tighten and Varro began to hear a low buzzing in his ears.  He started to get disoriented, and shook his head to clear his thoughts.  It was then he realized that the buzzing was actually a low growl being echoed from each of the animals in the pack.

            “Aachen, what should I do?”  Even though he was older, Varro had already instinctively deferred to Aachen regarding matters of strength and battle.

            “Do I look like I know?  I don’t even have a weapon except my dagger!”

            “Neither do I!  We can’t possibly kill them all!”

            “I mean to try.”  Aachen’s voice became flat and emotionless as he slipped into battle mode.  He loosed his dagger from its sheath around his waist.

            Varro bent to retrieve his dagger from his belt and realized that the lupine ring had shifted to ensnare him as well.

            “We can’t possibly fight them all,” Varro repeated.  “There are only two of us.”

            “Start with the leader,” Aachen gestured to the one who had snubbed the rabbit.  The beast, as if understanding the words, turned his golden eyes to Varro in a seeming challenge.

            The two boys stood together, shoulder to shoulder, with daggers in hand.  They looked at each other, but no words needed to be said.

            Aachen shouted and lunged at their quarry.  The beast leapt, and at the same instant, Varro let fly with his dagger.  The wolf sagged and seemed to drop from mid air.  It landed in a heap before Aachen without a sound.  Suddenly, the rest of the pack melted into the forest in search of easier prey.  Varro looked at the beast and saw his dagger buried to its hilt in the chest of the wolf.  He approached and crouched to remove his knife from its furry sheath.  Aachen was behind him in a semi-crouch, dagger in hand, turning his head back and forth, checking for any remaining wolves; still in battle fever.  Varro reached out, and at that moment, it opened its eyes and began to snarl.  Before he could react, the beast locked its gaze to his.  Varro gasped.  For a split second, he was sure he heard a gravelly voice. 

            “Release me.”

            He looked to Aachen, but the other boy was still scouring the surrounding woods for wolves.  He looked back to the Lord of the Forest and saw the pain in his golden eyes.  He tentatively stretched his hand out, grasped the hilt of his dagger, and twisted it into the animal’s heart. 

            “Thank you, Varro,” whispered the voice, and the light flew from the beast’s eyes.  He withdrew his blade.  A warm feeling washed over him and then the blood began to flow from the wound.  Its crimson wetness began to cover the animal’s fur and the slightly frozen ground he crouched on.  He felt a momentary dizziness and felt a visceral calling towards the scent of it.  He dreamed of running at the head of a pack, chasing down a deer.  They were closing in, but just as he was about to bury his teeth deeply into the elegant neck, he heard Aachen’s voice as if calling him from a distance.

            “Did he bite you?  Varro?  Are you OK?”

            Varro came back to himself and carefully focused his attention on his foster brother. 

            “I’m unharmed.  He died before he could attack me.”

            Aachen walked the several steps that separated them.  “How did you do that?  You killed him.  You just threw your dagger and he fell…”  He suddenly stopped speaking.  The silence was strained and then he looked at Varro as if he had never seen him before.  “What-what did you do?”

            “What do you mean?”  Varro’s head was beginning to throb.  “I threw my dagger, it was a lucky shot.”

            “Your eyes…”

            “What is it?”  Varro was becoming unhinged.  “Speak, brother, you are frightening me!”  The throbbing was getting stronger, the sound of Aachen’s voice was starting to hurt his head.

            “Your eyes have changed color…they look like the wolf’s.”  And then the world went black.

Looking at 40

Hi there. I see you. Yes, you, over there, right around the corner. No, I don't want to make eye contact, either. You were always so far away, something other people had to deal with. I knew that some day I would have to face you, but it always seemed so far away. You weren't real.

I know, it's only a number. It doesn't mean anything. Nothing changes, I am still the same person I was yesterday and I will still be the same person tomorrow. Why is this such a big deal to me? I still have the same thoughts, dreams, feelings, hopes, fears, insecurities as I always have. Why am I giving this number such power over me?

I turn 40 in less than a week. Let me just say that again. I turn 40 in less than a week. It doesn't mean anything, but it means everything.

I am still immature, and silly, and afraid, and giggly, and fun. I am still a mom, a professional woman, a daughter, a friend. I am still full of ambition. I am still full of laughter. I am still healthy. I am still attractive. I am still intelligent. I am still trying to better myself. I still learn. I still dream. How will a number change any of that?

But, I'm terrified. I haven't been the young, innocent ingenue for quite a while now. Yet, somehow it feels like a part of me is dying when I cross that threshold. I will be middle-aged. My mistakes are no longer "cute". If I make a foolish choice, I can no longer chalk it up to not knowing any better. I am old enough to know better. This is not a joke. Life can no longer sort itself out in the long run. The long run has started. I won't say I'm on the home stretch, but I've definitely come around the second turn. There is no "someday". It is now.

So, please, don't look at me. Don't make eye contact with me. Please keep moving and pretend you don't see me today. Or, if you do, please pretend along with me that I'm 20-something. Please don't notice my middle age wrapping its wings around me, enfolding me within its embrace. Please, if you can't pretend, just walk past and chuckle at my quandry when you've moved out of earshot.

This is me, looking at 40, dancing in front of me, taunting me. It is time. There are no more games. This is the real thing. This is what you call adulthood. It is taking me by the hand regardless of my desires. It is here, and I can't fight it any more. This is me, accepting who I have become and showing myself and the rest of the world that there is value to the experiences I have lived through. There is something to be said for being grown up. There is hope to aging. There is wisdom in the mistakes. There is hope in a limited time. There are still things to look forward to. This is not the end. This is another beginning.