I got sidetracked this morning by cool internet videos, so I’m back at lunch to M&M the post I wrote last night (Mortality and Morbidity, not the candy. :P). An M&M is a debriefing when a patient dies at a hospital, covering what happened and when and why.

I was already emotionally crispy when I read the article about the 14-year-old girl enmeshed in an abusive relationship for five years with an adult. It started before she could vote, before she could drive, before she could drink… and still, the article about her mentions nothing about statutory rape. Her mother and her best friend even condoned the relationship because they met the abuser and liked him.

Now THERE’S a shocker. An abuser was charming in the beginning. I think I’m going to have a heart attack and die of NOT SURPRISED.

All abusers are charming in the beginning, using a technique called “lovebombing.” Once they’ve gotten you totally suckered in by their enormous shower of affection, they start treating you badly because you deserve it. You’re so needy… and you have this habit of having feelings about things.

In an adult/adult relationship, it’s not always one person doing it to the other. Hurt people hurt people, and if both sides of the equation come from less than ideal childhood, the relationship becomes a tumbling, rolling mess of sunshine and chill… the words I always use for alternately lovebombing and gaslighting each other. All arguments boil down to this:

It’s YOUR fault.
No, it’s YOUR fault.
Go to hell.
Fuck off… ad nauseam until one of us dies.

It takes an ENORMOUS amount of work to fix that dynamic, and some people never do. I can only hope that I am fixing it by naming it.

Severely and with self-compassion all at once.

[Editor’s Note: The staff wishes to apologize for that run-on. We are being sacked.]

With an adult/child relationship, the child is too vulnerable to know the tactics used by an abuser and as they grow, generally either shut down or give so much of themselves that there’s nothing left in terms of self-preservation. None of the people I’ve met so far fall in the middle of the spectrum.

I do, now… because my personalities are in the process of fusing together after years and years of thinking I wasn’t enough… leading me to hurt myself and others with my actions and reactions. In so many ways, it was accidental. In others, it wasn’t. This is because sometimes I was self-aware and sometimes I was oblivious. When I was self-aware, I was in fierce protection mode, and nothing could deter me from it. When I wasn’t, I was stomping on others’ emotions because that’s what I knew to do, not how I saw myself or how I wanted to relate to the world.

I just realized that was in past tense, and realistically, I’m not sure that anyone ever fully recovers from emotional abuse. The main thing is that we all keep trying. We all have these epiphanies that drive us forward, but that is for people paying attention to them. Not becoming self-aware is perpetuating the cycle with no hope for redemption.

And, to paraphrase Elizabeth Gilbert, “I don’t know any story of self-actualization that doesn’t begin with getting tired of your own bullshit.”

Yesterday, I realized that on this blog I’d given up my mission- to destroy abuse itself and not just what resided in my own mind. To put myself out there in hopes of people recognizing patterns in their own behavior without coming across as a “judgmental dickhead” (still laughing about that one, Argo).

Dana: Did she really say that?
Leslie: Yes… Why? Do you like her BETTER now?
Dana: [huge conspiratorial smile]

(still laughing about that one, Dana)

I feel that an “I showed you mine” approach is better than coming at it like a professor smiling down from above. If there’s anything that Jesus has taught me, it’s to get in the shit with people and not lord things over them (see what I did there?). Build a community by sitting down while all y’all are standing up.

(Jill, Lindsay… see what I did there?)

Lunchtime over.

Lanagan out.

[Editor’s Note: The new staff wishes to apologize for paraphrasing Ryan Seacrest. We are also being sacked.]

This is my theme for today. I will be stumbling upon everything, because I am fried. I didn’t fall asleep until 0300 after writing last night’s post. Adrenaline and cortisol swirled in me to create wild-eyed rage, and all I could do was sit there. I didn’t want to accidentally unleash crazy spatter on anyone, so I played games and watched Hulu instead. And by accidentally, I mean that I didn’t want to enter into any conversation in which I got irrationally pissed off because I was angry about something else.

Been there, bought the t-shirt AND the baseball cap.

So as I sat there and zoned out, waiting for manageable calm, I did find a web show I liked called “Forever 31.” Look for the first episode after the jump.

OMG Iliza reminds me so much of Bryn it HURTS… not in terms of life experience. Literally, like in speech patterns.

And honestly, I was going to write more, but I found an interview with Iliza and I stopped everything and watched it. More later. 😛

This article made the drop of nothing in my soul scream. It’s about a 14-year-old girl who stays with a 21-year-old man for five years, and nowhere does it talk about rape.

It’s not a relationship.

It’s rape.

It’s child abuse.

It’s letting someone get away with it by pretending both of those things are false.

These are the moments where I feel the smallest, because I can’t do anything to give that kid her childhood back. I can’t slay her dragon. But what I can do is write about it here, and hope that the next parent will see it. If you have a 14-year-old daughter that’s dating an adult, you have the responsibility to end the relationship. You have the right to monitor phone calls, e-mail, all social media, the mail. You have the RIGHT TO PARENT. It isn’t invasive. Your kids are not your equal, do not have the life experience you do, do not see why their relationship just isn’t.

They’ll call you all sorts of names and try every trick in the book to get back into their abuser’s circle of influence. They’ll lie, cheat, and steal if they have to. Talking an abused child out of a relationship like this will be constant vigilance and very, very difficult. Abusers always seem AMAZING at first. To your child, they’ll be the only one in color in a world of greys and whites. It will feel like jailing your child, and they will need it. Because they’re children.

And no matter when you notice it, even if you catch it early, early on, the first step is a psych consult, because your child will not know what to do with all the dopamine and adrenaline coursing through their bodies. They won’t be able to deal with the cognitive dissonance of sunshine and chill, often at extremely short intervals.

They’ll grow up into dysfunctioning adults, and I can promise you that. I’ve lived it, and because of that, I’ve met others in droves. We ALL HAVE THE SAME STORY.

Let me make it clear that Diane never touched me, not even once, but I would have died before I let anyone know what I was going through. Mentally, I was a basketcase and I’d brought it all upon myself. I thought no one needed to help me because it wasn’t their fault- they didn’t need to be burdened with my problems. But not telling made me an adult that regrets a lot of the choices I’ve made in my life, because I stuffed down every negative emotion I felt as a teen and just vomited them everywhere when I finally accepted what had really happened to me and got the fuck out. It only took 25 years. Don’t let that be your child’s story. Don’t let it last a minute longer than it does.

The echoes reverberate even now, and it will last my whole life if I let it. I am actively working with a therapist and still, there are days when I cannot even… and it can be traced to all the dead spots in my soul where appropriate emotional growth was supposed to occur and didn’t.

The drop of nothing those dead spots created make it impossible for me not to think about what I would do to this guy if I found him. Let me assure you that Quentin Tarantino has nothing on me, because revenge feels so good in my head. They are thoughts, not actions. I use my faith to keep me grounded and walk toward that light, because I know my propensity for darkness and I do not like it.

If I let darkness win, I walk in it instead. My eyes go dead, and my mind is empty of emotions, because they’ve been put away. Every sociopathic tendency I’ve picked up over my lifetime starts to show, because sociopathy is rarely nature, but nurture. You exhibit what is modeled.

If you are lucky, you will have friends that know your history and will forgive you. If you are not, you will alienate everyone… both in the process of trying not to hurt or be hurt by someone else. You will react to emotional violence by trying to shield yourself from it, going to extraordinary lengths to protect yourself, and worse yet, actively hurting others because you don’t know what the normal response might be.

Don’t think it starts in middle school. There are sick fucks out there that will rape a toddler, which is even more insidious because the victim doesn’t remember the trauma that caused the dead spots to grow, they’ve just compounded the hurt for years and years in “inexplicable” behaviors. There’s always an explanation, even if you don’t know what it is.

If your child won’t talk to you, find someone they will open up to because they may not be able to talk to you, as painful as it might be to hear. They don’t want to hurt you, and they’ll do anything to protect their abuser. Bank on it. Write it down.

Don’t let your kid be me. I know myself well enough not to wish that pain on them. It’s not that I’m not a good person, or that I don’t have that capability. It’s that in a lot of situations, my reactions are completely fucked up because what I would do and what a regular person would do are totally different.

One of the reasons that you have to be so “monstrous” to your kids, because they’ll believe that you taking their abuser from them is the worst thing that could happen, is that abusers often have fascinating layers of insulation around them… including the child they’re abusing.

I’ve hurt so many people, intentionally and not, with the rewired reactions of an emotionally abused child that grew up to emotionally abuse others. I’ve intentionally picked relationships with other abused children because their actions/reactions have been just as fucked up as mine, creating a world of toxicity and pain, both romantic and not.

It is totally by the grace of God that I was delivered from my distress, and up to me to figure out what to do with it… how to move forward, how to release demons, how to apologize sincerely and change my behavior so that my reactions are again rewired into normalcy. But it is not a fast process, especially because I wouldn’t talk then. I grew up into an adult that still wouldn’t talk about it, and it took someone scratching the scab to open Pandora’s Box.

The hardest part is now that it’s open, I have to figure out a way to close it again… because the last thing I want is to spend another day thinking this way. Of being capable of bringing darkness into the world when all I want to carry is light.

Right now, the best I can do is to constantly keep watch. Light is always in one of my hands. I’m trying to carry it in both.

Today is just one of those “I’m up… what more can you ask of me?” kind of days. Nothing hurts, but the wrong side of the bed is an understatement. I will get over it, I always do. But I have an emotional hangover from yesterday. Yesterday, I was flooding out, which is just exhausting. I did sleep well, though… so perhaps this “get off my lawn” feeling will pass quickly. I’m having a caffeine pill and a large glass of water, which will kick in about the time I finish this post.

On the plus side, I fixed my computer and got a USB keyboard for my desk, so I really feel like I am back in business. The charger was hideously expensive, but it has adapters for both my home and work laptops, as well as any laptop I might buy in the future. The instructions pissed me off enormously. The instructions said that in order to find the right adapter for your laptop, go to this URL. OK, genius. Great logic. My laptop is dead and you want me to go to a URL? How does that happen? I mean, I have my phone and everything, but what if you don’t? In the end, I didn’t bother with the URL. I just tried them until I found it, which was the second attempt. Not bad. But sub-par documentation is irritating at best to a computer geek like me. Some of us don’t even RTFM (read the fucking manual), but documentation is generally not written for our audience… I’m just an empath, and feel for the millions of people who are lost and confused by the box part and the TV part.

I’m getting excited for my birthday, because my presents are usually gadgets. Last year it was the iPad mini and the Bluetooth keyboard, which are friggin’ awesome because they make my backpack so much lighter… more necessary then than now, because I was walking everywhere… but even now, I appreciate the fact that I can turn an iPad mini into a functioning laptop on the go. This year, I asked for an Android phone so I could get out of iTunes and use my phone natively in linux. I think I’m going to get it. 🙂

The other thing about Android phones is that they generally come with expansion slots up to 128 GB, which is so awesome. Even if I can’t move my apps to it, I can still carry movies and music on my phone so that I don’t have to use my data connection for it… which ultimately saves money because no overages streaming in the car. Also, some Android phones have a radio, using your headphones as the antenna. NPR, bitches. N. P. R.

I’m still bitter about the firing of Bob Edwards and Linda Wertheimer from Morning Edition. Maybe I should get over it. Or not. At the time, I was so angry that I literally sent a “fuck you” letter to the station over ageism, because that’s sincerely what it was… even reported that way in the news, which is so illegal it hurts.

Maybe I’ve been feeling a little “get off my lawn” for longer than I think. 😛

Back to you, Bob. Let’s go to the phones.

I think it’s time for another round of Accutane. My face will naturally get better once the air cools, but at the same time, my oil glands are starting to grow back in from being destroyed the first time around. The side effects are extraordinarily unpleasant, but it’s another one of those drugs where you have to make a choice. With lamotrigine, it was nauseous or crazy. With Accutane, it’s clear skin or aches and pains all over, and constantly moisturizing. Not the easiest decision in the world, but I know that if I don’t take care of my skin, the acne will become systemic and therefore, harder and harder to get rid of it.

We’ve got to nip it in the bud (Barney Fife voice).

There are five days left in my 38th year, and I am not sure that the best part has happened yet. It hasn’t been bad by any means, but the old sports phrase “it’s a rebuilding year” is completely accurate.

I’ve found friends and lost them.

I’ve gained pounds and lost them.

I’ve gained perspectives and lost them.

This directly correlates to weight. If something is particularly troubling to me, I stop eating. Once I am comfortable again, food is spectacular. It is the thing that I’ve been dealing with the most this year, because when I lose weight, I look like a lost and frightened child. People tell me that they would kill to be as small as I am, having no idea that I have body issues (just like everyone else) and it hurts to hear positive reinforcement for absolutely starving myself when I am troubled by my own mind. If I were doing it on purpose, I could find a way to stop. But I am so focused on mind issues that body issues fall by the wayside. I don’t lose weight because I’m trying. I lose weight because I’ve stopped.

The thing I’ve gained and not lost is a true sense of home. I am a Virgo, tied to setting in an enormous way, and DC feeds my soul… the part of me that is awed by politics, the military, the press, and the law. I never thought I’d get the chance to move back, and though it didn’t happen this year, the true settling in has occurred. The roots that were once superficial are deep into the ground. I am rising above survival into thriving.

Some days.

On others, I am inconsolably lonely at all I have lost. Yes, still. I miss Dana and Argo both specifically and not… meaning that I miss them personally and their roles, which to me are both jointly and severally. I miss sending Argo a quick note to say goodnight and then either falling into my bed or Dana’s… and on the nights when I fell into my bed, knowing that Dana was down the hall and there would just be this explosion of joy in the morning at seeing her again. A few hours of absence only created a deep need to see her, so excited I’d jump on her and kiss her even when she was asleep (I cannot tell you how amused I was at her sometimes fake, sometimes real grumpiness at this). Now I fall asleep to memories of all of it… comforting and unsettling all at once. It is sometimes unbearable to know that you loved someone more than yourself and yet, didn’t show it where they could see it.

I am learning, and this year is proof positive.

I spent hours today reading my own writing, trying to figure out what the theme of my year was since I didn’t have one of SarahAnne’s stars to tell me. I’ve told this story before, but it freaked Dana and me out that no one knew we’d gone to the OB/GYN to talk about pregnancy and my star that year was “Expect.”

Every year at Epiphany, stars are (or were, haven’t been there in years) given out with one word to encompass everything. Expect could mean anything, but that year was a doozy.

This year has been a haze of time, malleable in my mind because it is only through timestamps on my blog that I can remember what happened when. I can remember the tiniest details of an experience, but order is not one of them. The closest I can get is what the sun looked like that day, or what was in the air.

This year, the word in the air has been “Look.” Being curious cost me nothing and everything. I lost an enormous amount of grief by being able to sit in a setting where everything felt present, alive, full of possibility… only to come home and realize I’d solved nothing at all.

I am grateful for all the things that will ultimately pull me forward later that dragged me back today… all the things I have

gained

and

lost.

Earlier today, I read this article entitled How to Tell a Mother Her Child is Dead. I greatly admired the style of the prose, and want to try my hand at it.

Some days you will need to dress in crisp, white linen shirts and pressed pants and jewelry so that you know you look nice on the outside before you release the ugliness within; it all comes out in a rush on the page and as you reread your own words, your breath will become short at the sight of your own iniquity.

You remember the things people have said to you when they’ve read what you’ve written and count how many people “get you” and how many people don’t. You will ignore the people that understand in favor of laboring over every negative comment, because you had the same thoughts when you were reading about what you have done and left undone… so the people that hurt you are right and the people that understand you are just being polite.

This is because to write about yourself is to lay out pieces of you to dry in the sun so that they look different as they weather, erode. As beautiful patterns emerge, you recognize them… or you will, once you have enough information.

This is the type of information that is delivered severely, because if you are trying to affect change, you will shake and cry until your fingers aren’t touching the keyboard anymore, and you won’t notice… until you do. When the realization hits you, you reset your hands. The only way out is through.

The hardest part is not writing that one piece that one time, but hurting so much you can’t breathe and being willing to do it again. To see all your sins laid out once more. To be willing to choke on your own words day after day after month after month after year after year. To feel like nothing ever changes, until you read your words once some time has passed and epiphany strikes.. you are better in some areas, worse in others.

But alas, “better” and “worse” are subjective so who is to say?

When you have finished writing, you crawl into bed as if you have run a marathon, aching with pain from your wrists and your mind… drifting off in the haze of everything you meant to say….

And didn’t.

I have discovered that I may not be a real writer after all. This is because I remembered to grab my iPad off my desk for the weekend, but not my keyboard… You know, the one I cannot think without? That is because my other Bluetooth keyboard, the one that came with said iPad, is a mini and not full size. Punctuation is done through a series of shift and function keys, which slows down my typing rhythm and just generally makes me want to poke out my eyeball with a stick to get out of posting. I can hear you thinking “why don’t you use your laptop?” Well, because when I came home Friday night I noticed that the rubber had come apart from the metal on the charger and the endpiece was still stuck in the motherboard, but the rubber cord was on the floor. At some point this weekend I will go to Best Buy and get a replacement charger, or order one from Amazon if it is cheaper. But I will check at Best Buy first so that I do not go more insane than normal before Tuesday. If I have somehow damaged the motherboard, then I am really screwed, because I am so out of warranty that it would be cheaper just to buy a new computer. A netbook would work for my purpose, because most of the time, my laptop is hooked up to my TV and runs Kodi, a media center. My computer really only needs to be fast enough for cat videos. I do not watch them, just a frame of reference. As I have said before, I like owning cats. Not so much watching other people’s…

Pretty sure that can be traced back to the sole cause of my divorce. Dana is a cat video person. I am not. So, you see, it ultimately did not work out, because those are the only two kinds of people in the world.

I miss Scales already. She is gone, and took The Colonel with her. This is unfortunate, because I really wanted to bum around DC with her while Scales was gone because we have so much in common to talk about that I am pretty sure that we could literally talk non-stop from the time Scales’ plane touched down at her destination until it touched down at DCA. But their love is strong, so ultimately, The Colonel wanted to be posted with her. I am glad, because it makes me feel safer. There is no way Scales would come to bodily harm if the Colonel was there. It is like her own private security detail as well as her wife… which might have gone into their decision-making, because it certainly went into mine… that it would be fortunate for Scales to have The Colonel there because Pam Landy, Sydney Bristow, and Annie Walker are fictional characters and I cannot call them… even worse, Tony Mendez is retired so a film crew is out of the question.

I feel sorry for real film crews that want to film in the Middle East now, because I bet it’s like, “no, really. We are too dumb to CIA.” Like Stockard Channing when she joked “seriously, who would want Marty to be President??” Case in point… has anyone who has played a doctor on TV ever been called for a consult? Let me know.

I would never call anyone in the arts dumb, it is just a different kind of intelligence. Music can be mathematically complicated, so logic does play a part, but the arts intelligence is knowing where and when to use vibrato… which, in my opinion, is probably just as difficult as trying to get a film crew through a Middle Eastern airport. One bad move and the whole op is ruined.

I cannot take it anymore. This keyboard is making my fingers cramped and cranky. See you on the flip side.

I’m at SBUX earlier than usual, and just starting to watch people walk in… stumble, really… just put the coffee in the cup and no one gets hurt. I’m having one of those Evolution juices and a venti soy latte. I originally wanted to eat breakfast, but I couldn’t decide on food, so I decided to drink it instead. I’m not particularly hungry. I had a rough day emotionally yesterday- found out a friend has a sibling with cancer and it brought up all sorts of feelings that I am spewing on Talkspace.

Talkspace is online therapy, and it is exhausting. Basically, it’s like blogging with feedback, except much, much more painful because there are no limits. I can say whatever I want with no blowback from readers, which means uncovering even more of the sludge in my soul than can surface here. Excruciating doesn’t begin to cover it, and I’m serious… although if I wasn’t serious, therapy wouldn’t help.

Therapy is much akin to rubbing alcohol. You know it cleans a wound, but you can’t help but say a few choice curse words when it hits broken skin. It stings before it feels better.

I hold myself accountable to an enormous degree, and so it is the same with this therapist, that they think I’m beating myself up too hard. But I’m so good at it! Why take away my superpower?

SHe does have huge respect for the fact that I don’t try to blame my problems on anyone else, though. I know what’s mine to own, and what’s not. But the part I own, I own hard. I’ll be glad with the Freudian analysis of my past is over, and we can move into visioning and values, coping mechanisms and healthy reactions. But right now, what I mean by Freudian analysis is what a general practitioner would call an “H&P,” or History & Physical. It’s basically how I got here and why, along with my chief complaint, of which I do not just have one.

I like Talkspace because I get more help than an hour a week for the same price as a BCBS co-pay.

So if my writing drops off, it’s not because I don’t like you anymore. 😛 It’s that I am so exausted from personal exegesis that I do not have the energy to unpack here, too. Perhaps I can take selected exerpts of what I write on Talkspace and post them here. Not everything is shrouded in secrecy. I’m interesting, but I’m not THAT interesting.

😛

Every time you state what you want or believe, you’re the first to hear it. It’s a message to both you and others about what you think is possible. Don’t put a ceiling on yourself.

– Oprah Winfrey

Last year, when Jeffrey Thames took over the pulpit at CCC, he preached a sermon called The Certain Samaritan. This week, he said that as certain Samaritans, it was our job to make sure everyone was on a level playing field. It was a call to action, and the congregation was tracking right along with him. He used a line I’ll never forget, that there should be no big Is and little yous. I love a good grammatical double entendre, and this one made a clear point. We all have sins, even when we think we don’t. If we are called to be Christ in the world, and we don’t use that power, it is a sin of omission, because we are actively rejecting the Christ-called mission to feed the poor, to stand up for whom the Book of Common Prayer calls “the sick, the friendless, and the needy,” and standing in judgment of people whose sins we think are greater than ours.

When my friend Casey was between his sophomore and junior years of high school, he was in a car accident that killed one of his friends. He was crushed because he was the driver, and later wrote a fantastic book about it called Tragedy to Truth. From that accident, he went on to become one of the most popular preachers in the Houston area. When I went to hear him, we hadn’t seen each other since we graduated from Clements together, and I cried all the way through his sermon… not because his sermon was sad or anything like that, but because he had allowed God to put him back on the potter’s wheel. Casey’s success after everything that had happened brought me a bucketload of tears, and I was weeping with joy.

Therefore, when Jeffrey brought in one of the young men he’s now working with at Hope Restored with a similar story, it was another moment of tears slipping down my face, because this boy had gone from years of incarceration to going back to school for a physical therapy degree. He’d gotten interested in working out and exercise science in prison, and that gave him the strength to start thinking about his future rather than his past. Jeffrey made his point… that if no one had been there to stand up for that young man and say, “this man made a mistake, but that is not the man I know,” he might not have made such a miraculous transformation. That standing up for him was letting Christ work through his family and friends. That love and belief helped put him back on the potter’s wheel, because we are clay.

In terms of my own life, I have to believe that these last three years are God’s way of saying there are cracks in your vessel. When are you getting back on the wheel? I also must undergo the transformation of tragedy to truth, because to me, rock bottom was the way I treated both Dana and Argo on the way out. In discovering my emotional abuse, confusion and rage bubbled up inside me that should have come out appropriately and, in a word, didn’t. Now, the rage is directed at me, because I am so ashamed of the way I behaved. But none of that means I am any less worthy than the love of God than anyone else. It’s what I do with that love that counts. I cannot go backward and undo anything, but what I can do is to stand up and own my mistakes, then make it possible to stretch myself out of that self-directed anger into promise.

I have oft been accused of not living up to my potential, and until my 36th birthday, I couldn’t wrap my brain around why.

Why couldn’t I use the emotional toolbox that I used when friends came to me with their problems on myself? Why couldn’t I motivate myself? Why couldn’t I pick myself up by the bootstraps when I could so easily build up others? Why was I so angry all the time? Why did I direct that anger at the people I loved the most instead of the people who deserved it? Now, I know the answer, and so do you if you’ve been with me on this journey. I didn’t feel that I was worthy of love, that people would discover I wasn’t worth their time, anyway, and it was easier to push people away before they figured this out on their own.

Dana was my rock, and in some ways, my redeemer, and I still had moments where I treated her like crap… but only because I was treating myself much, much worse.

I raged at Argo because she was an easy target. I didn’t really know her, and therefore, she was only real to me in some ways. In others, I was just screaming into a void. It was a mistake of gargantuan proportions, because she was the one friend that would literally call bullshit and tell me when I was being a “judgmental dickhead.” If I’d taken the time to really invest in that friendship, without making it this fantastical rabbit hole of emotion, she might still be. In a lot of ways, when the rabbit hole was severed, I was Alice falling unmoored, and when I landed, there was no padding.

Rock bottom. There’s a reason they call it that, and I landed on my head.

Everything I held dear slipped away at my own hand, and it created permanent scars that are healing nicely, but I will always be able to look at them, because that’s the thing about scars… I know this from cooking. I haven’t picked up a Chef’s Knife in years, and yet I still have scars from the days when I did, and a pink triangle on my forearm where I touched the corner of a convection oven. They don’t hurt anymore, but they’re still there.

And so it goes with emotions. Eventually, the scars won’t hurt, but that doesn’t mean I won’t have flashbacks of the person I used to be and the desire to be different… to keep working to be a better person because of them.

Maybe it takes falling apart to come back together, but what I have learned is that all people are really two, and we have to learn to love them both. There will never be a time when any person is rid of sin, but God doesn’t mold us once. God molds us whenever we ask. Not to ask is putting a ceiling on what we believe is possible, and what we tell ourselves makes all the difference.

Amen.
#prayingonthespaces

I just took two Klonopin and I’m sitting at my desk trying not to cry… partly because I lost a friend and I feel like I’m losing one now.

Weeks ago, The Professor asked me to do something the weekend of the Ghostbusters movie with Danni, Autumn, and the crew. I told her that if I couldn’t get a ticket, I’d love to do something, or we could get together on Saturday or Sunday. I wrote her back and said that I did get a ticket, told her which theater we were going to, and asked her if she’d like to come. Then, complete radio silence until a few days ago, when I finally reached out to her, because it was her turn to reply until I thought so much time had gone by that it was silly and decided to swallow my pride and see if she wanted to get together. She did.

Then, the next day, I get an e-mail saying that she’s in a relationship now and she’s going to be pretty busy at work, etc. We’d gotten sort of close, a relationship that I thought might turn into something, and I was so surprised that I told her I thought it was best we didn’t communicate.

The last time we’d spoken, we’d planned all kinds of things to do, and admitted that we had feelings for each other. We’d by no means gone on any kind of date, but I was just beginning to accept the idea that I might want to go on one. I could be done brutally punishing myself for the past and try to move into the future. Her first e-mail to me sounded like the relationship was exactly where we’d left it- she still wanted to meet at a coffee shop and read/write together.

I wasn’t blindsided by any means in terms of her being in a relationship now, because there was no relationship between us save a friendship I’d hoped would get closer… and perhaps turn into something more as we walked together… where the idea of waking up next to someone else wasn’t scary anymore.

However, I was hurt and disappointed that she ghosted, showed up as if nothing had happened, and then sprung it on me that she was too busy for me between work and this new person. Overnight, she was different.

Overnight, so was I.

Communicating with her was something I knew would hurt, so that’s why I ended the friendship altogether. Having feelings about her in this space is different, because I’m not writing to anyone but me. You’re always invited, but even if I didn’t have any readers, this would be the place where I’d keep my memories.

I’m always certain that people have my URL. I’m never certain that they’re reading, and it can’t matter to me, because I won’t heal if I put others’ opinions above my own.

And then today I saw that Scales and The Colonel had gotten married on Facebook. We’d gotten fairly close, so it wasn’t like I expected an invitation, but I had to deal with my disappointment that I didn’t get a heads up. Maybe she thought I’d try to talk her out of it, but I wouldn’t have. If she’s happy, so I am I. But again, it’s another friend that’s just been lost in this cocoon of relationship that no friendship resides outside of it, at least between us.

I do not understand this, only because I dig the fuck out of The Colonel and never felt like a third wheel. But I get it. She’s leaving on assignment soon and probably just wanted to spend as much time with her wife as she could before she left. She was noncommittal on even seeing me before she left the country, which stings like a motherfucker because I feel like I got to be her friend during a really crappy time in her life and be the supportive person that would listen while she cried, but didn’t get to enjoy her in all of her laughter.

But if there’s something we all have too little of, it’s time.

I know that a little part of her wanted that whirlwind romance to be with me, but I couldn’t do it, knowing that she was leaving in four months and I wasn’t even ready to go on a first date, much less a tenth… and I definitely wouldn’t have been ready to get married the week before she shipped out.

But the Colonel has more resources than I do, the ability to travel the world, so I think that Scales ended up with the right person for her. But it doesn’t mean I don’t miss her friendship, and part of me wants to push her away, too, because she has so clearly pushed me away as well.

Maybe, like Argo, she was a soulmate not designed to be permanent, but to shake me into a different reality, like Richard from Texas in Eat. Pray. Love.

I also had a moment of, “so this is what it’s like to find out big news on Facebook,” relating it back to my separation announcement from Dana. And then I had a huge moment of clarity. You don’t include people in your divorce. You don’t invite them. The problem of who to tell first still exists, because you’re not spreading happy news. It bothered the shit out of me for a long time that Dana approved the post and held it over my head immediately afterward, even though the comments on that post were among the most supportive and loving I’ve ever gotten. I can’t speak for Dana, but just as much love poured out for her as well, but it is not up to me to decide if she felt it.

And even then, the reality of divorce didn’t hit me. I even wrote in the post that perhaps our paths would ultimately lead us back to each other. It hit me much later, after a lot of writing and processing had taken place. That our communication styles would never mesh, that I could forgive her for the fistfight but I couldn’t forget it, that her family was never going to take me in the way mine had wound themselves around her.

And that Dana liked our cocoon, and the fight regarding Argo would never be over, not ever. Too much had gone on between Argo and me that made Dana feel absolutely excluded, and that left-out feeling was the seat of her resentment and always would be as long as Argo was in the picture, no matter what the painting entailed.

It’s pizza night, but I’m not hungry.

I woke up at 0215 and didn’t get back to sleep until about 45 minutes later. Fell asleep to WTF (Alan Alda was the guest). Then, in the middle of the night, I had this dream that drove me so crazy it woke me up. I took a Benadryl last night (thus what I’m having now), which gives me extremely vivid dreams, so I doubt I would have remembered it save that.

First of all, you have to know that my dad is a ridiculous prankster. For instance we’re riding in our van and decide to stop at Mickey D’s:

One of Kelly’s school friends: I bet you won’t mess with the drive-thru guy.
Leslie (thinking): Oh Lort. Here we go.
Drive-thru Guy: Welcome to McDonald’s. May I take your order?
Dad: You’ll have to excuse me. I have Alzheimer’s.
DTG: That’s ok, sir. Take all the time you need.
Dad: I’d like a cheeseburger.
DTG: Would you like fries with that?
Dad: With what……………… You’ll have to excuse me, I have Alzheimer’s.

This seriously goes on for what seems like fifteen minutes. I’m sure it was only two, but the passage of time makes it stretch. The guy was literally dumbfounded, had no idea what to do, and we’re all in the back of the van, crying we’re laughing so hard.

Now, I know this isn’t very PC, but it was almost 20 years ago, and you never dare a Lanagan. Never.

My dad is also an excellent whistler. He and his friend Paul once whistled the Vivaldi two-trumpet concerto just to see if they could do it. In terms of pranking and whistling, my dad will often whistle something beautifully and then end on a quarter-tone, which cracks me up every single time.

So last night in my dream, my dad was whistling something that ended in “Shave and a Haircut,” except he ended on the note corresponding with the word “two.” I woke myself up when I said, out loud, “RESOLVE THE CHORD!”

That’s my dad. Pranking me in my dreams.

It is really eerie that the blog entry I just wrote not an hour ago has so much to do with this sermon. I couldn’t have planned it better, really, which is the best part ever. I didn’t plan it at all.

I told you my favorite example of Jesus changing his mind, and here is today’s Gospel in its entirety, taken from Luke 13:10-17:

Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.” But the Lord answered him and said, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?” When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.

This is the ultimate smackdown between Jesus and the keepers of the law, a standing ovation of a story that has me whooping and hollering and clapping, even sitting alone in my room typing. Jesus knows that the legal system does not prevent Jews from being cruel to animals, so why in God’s name (literally) does it say that healing humans is “work?” Why is being cruel to humans okay, and being cruel to animals is not?

Jesus slaps the law in its face, using its own words. That’s the most fun in reading Jesus. When he uses the legal system to make the people in charge of it look like jackasses. There’s a beauty in it, really, and always my favorite part of the Bible. To compare Jesus to modern day rebels, Elizabeth Warren stands out as a pure example. She just slaps the law in its face, and as Matt Damon famously said regarding American banks during a speech at MIT:

It was theft, and you knew it. It was fraud and you knew it, and you know what else? We know that you knew it. I don’t know if justice is coming for you in this life or the next, but if it does come in this life? Her name will be Elizabeth Warren.

Yes. Yes, it will.

I don’t know and I don’t care whether Elizabeth Warren or Matt Damon believes in Jesus, but I do know that this is such a Christ-like example of turning power on its ear that the Christ would be so proud he’d throw a parade in their honor.

For instance, take a look at this:

I didn’t think the GOP could write 1 bill to hurt women, vets, Obamacare, PP, AND clean water all at once – but they did it. #Zika

— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) June 28, 2016

Regardless of religious affiliation, there are people out there being Christ in the world, as all Christians are called to do. OF COURSE being Christ in the world is about the soft touch of helping a neighbor in need, giving to the poor we don’t even know but want to protect, and giving of ourselves to our faith community so that we can continue the ministries we wholeheartedly support.

But there’s also that other thing. The foresight to see wrong and correct it. Democrat or Republican Christians are not called to vote among party lines, but to tell the difference between right and wrong. I am not endorsing anyone, but standing up for what’s right. It is not my job as a theologian without any degrees to say for whom you should vote, but I can see individual laws going through the House and Senate and feel the need to slap them the way Jesus did… and slap them HARD.

Right now, it’s Republican policies that are hate-filled, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t stand up against Democrats if they were pulling the same stunts. It’s my job to be neutral when it comes to the party and up on my soapbox for the things Christ would tolerate and the things he wouldn’t.

I don’t think that Jesus would necessarily be for abortion, but at the same time, in Judaic law, there is no prohibition against it. In fact, abortion in Judaic law can take place at any time, a much longer statute of limitations than Roe v. Wade gives us now. However, I do think that Jesus would stand up for Planned Parenthood, not because of abortion itself, but because Planned Parenthood tries so hard to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place. I think that Jesus would stand up for a safety net in which parents do not have to fear an unwanted pregnancy because they are so financially strapped that they cannot afford another child which plunges them deeper and deeper into poverty. I think that Jesus would stand up to the pro-lifers that have no plan except preventing abortions and nothing for caring for children once they are born.

If this issue was really pro-life, the people who want that statute would be lined up around the block with bottles and blankets for the children born of unwanted pregnancies we already have. All children are a blessing from God, but it makes it harder to believe it when you have no way of taking care of it… when you have to choose between rent and food. When you have to choose between diapers and electricity. When you have to choose between child care and staying home, because the choice isn’t easy. When you look at the cost of child care in this country, if you go to work, you come home with maybe an extra $100 a month, because 90% of your paycheck is already spoken for. In a two income-family, this may not be as much of an issue as it is for single moms, because even with working and paying for child care, there’s no way to pay for the rent, bills, groceries, etc. without half the country screaming about social programs and how to get rid of them.

I am looking forward to the day when Republicans come back into the fold of working together with Democrats to accomplish great things, but I am probably going to be waiting a long time. Until then, we need to slap the system senseless.

Just as Christ would have done.

The issue at hand is that Jesus did not want to put anything off until tomorrow that could be done today. Why should that woman have had to wait to be healed when it was okay to be kind to an animal and not support the sanctity of human life?

The system failed that woman, just as ours is failing us now. We need our Christs in the world, whether they’re Christians or not. They are pointing the way to marked change, and so shall we. Because we are very members incorporate in the mystical body of Christ… and that means something. It means hardcore advocacy and radical change. It means a fearlessness that needs to be mustered from deep within.

It takes faith, and a lot of it, to be that brave. But I only have two words for you.

IT’S ON.

Don’t be a Democrat or a Republican. Be a Jesus.

Amen.
#prayingonthespaces

I don’t know why I thought that coffee would keep as long as I tried to… It’s Christmas Blend, if that gives you any indication. I am sure it would taste much better with CoffeeMate and Splenda, but if I wanted coffee that tasted like that I would have gone to McDonald’s. The thing is, though, I turned off the burner as soon as it was done brewing so that it wouldn’t taste burned once it was cool. I have a feeling it will taste much better in the morning, especially if I go to Trader Joe’s and get some “Coconut Beverage.” I could also turn it into a Bulletproof coffee with Kerrygold and coconut oil, but I am still deciding between a meal replacement and actually making eggs or going to Waffle House.

I am also still deciding whether I’m going to church this morning, because I somewhat hate it now. It has nothing to do with the people. It’s that I’m not in choir anymore (long story) and the pews dig into the corkscrew scoliosis in my back, so that by the end of the service, I am in so much pain that it takes about half an hour to really feel ok walking again. Besides, Matt has a podcast and I really enjoy writing my own sermons before I listen to him, because then I know whether I’m on the right track theologically, or whether I’ve just taken off into “The Lanagan Lectionary” that just makes no damn sense.

I got ripped a new one a few weeks back for saying that I thought Jesus was tired and burned out on Judaism, but not for lack of faith. For the way it was being executed. The Pharisees, Sadducees, and the Sanhedrin were all ready to eat Jesus and his Disciples’ lunch at any given moment. If Jesus hadn’t taken that burned out feeling and used it to great effect, Judaism would not have changed and brought to life the new church he was seeking- one that focused on promise theology and not beating people down with the law.

Jesus and his disciples practiced radical inclusion, and that’s the take-home message. The entire Bible is the journey from how Jesus created his own sect of Judaism, and how that new church eventually became Christianity, because unlike Judaism, the new sect was open to Gentiles as well.

There are several moments that stand out to me, but my favorite is Matthew 15:21-28:

21 Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22 A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.”

23 Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”

24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”

25 The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.

26 He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”

27 “Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”

28 Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment.

Do you see it? DO YOU SEE IT?

Jesus went from “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel” to healing a CANAANITE’s daughter.

Jesus changed his mind, and THAT’s THE POINT.

This is probably not the Gospel for the Lectionary today, so I’ll be writing something else later.

I just want to point out the words of the Book of Common Prayer here, from Rite I, that we are very members incorporate in the mystical body of thy Son, the blessed company of all faithful people; and are also heirs,through hope, of thy everlasting kingdom.” It is just a gargantuan change from the theology of the Old Testament, and something you could wake me up in the middle of the night and I’d be able to recite verbatim.

Though I have a few theological problems with Rite I, because it is not as inclusive as Rite II, I started going to St. Martin’s Episcopal Church at Woodway & Sage in Houston, Texas when I was 17 years old, and Rite I was my first exposure to the BCP. So therefore I have the whole thing memorized, tattooed on my heart, because there are so many times that I have not felt worthy to gather up the crumbs under Thy table, grateful that Thou are the same Lord whose property it is to have mercy. So many times have I knelt at the communion rail in abject pain and sorrow, and acknowledging my sin and my redemption has been the grace that has allowed me to move forward with my week.

These words are harsh, as harsh as I felt about myself, but the forgiveness is worth it. That even though I have committed egregious sins in the past, there is nothing that could separate me from the love of God as long as I truly and humbly repent and make it my goal for these sins to never happen again.

…even as I drink my crappy coffee.

I usually title my entries with what I’m eating at SBUX, but I’m having the same thing I had yesterday. Gold Coast is the “bold pick.” Yesterday I drank it black, perfect in its own way, but today lots of Splenda and half-n-half. Coffee needs fat… at least sometimes.

In other news, I forgot to e-mail Dan yesterday, but I got a great letter from The Professor, so we have plans in the near future. The last time we talked, she wanted to start an exercise program, and I asked her how she was doing on it, because having a workout buddy is so much better for me than trying to motivate myself. It’d be nice to roll out of bed and shower at the gym. I’d rather join a gym or the Y instead of running outside, because of the whole showering before work thing. Plus, a hot tub. Musn’t forget that.

Maybe one of these days I’ll work in an office with showers in the building. Pri-Diddy had that at the World Bank, and I was really jealous because she could get in her morning run without spending the rest of the day smelling like feet. #careergoals

Although to be honest, I really thought I’d be a mommy-blogger by now, exploiting my children for fun and profit… no pictures, though, just saving up for their therapy. I had to give up that dream when Dana and I divorced, but I am only 39 on September 10th, so I have at least three or four years in order to get my shit together. And if I can’t make it through the trying to conceive process, it would be great to adopt a toddler/kindergartner so that I’m not 90 by the time they graduate from high school.

But my life has taken its own turns, and that’s okay. I am happy the way I am, single and loving life because I have the time to turn trauma into promise. Jesus knows I need it. My “40 days and 40 nights” in the desert have provided me with more wisdom than ignoring my feelings ever would’ve.

I can only hope that I have done a good job of presenting my friends with a portrait that reflects their 3-D nature… that my interactions with them are not bad or good, just human. And it helps so much more to talk about good times than bad. It sustains me, keeps me from being a bitter old biddy, looking forward to love when it’s the right time instead of the wrong one.

I feel like I am ready to move on, with the possibility of dating, because there’s really nothing more to say about the rearview mirror. There’s a reason it’s so small. And in terms of my side mirrors, objects are not as close as they appear. Nothing is chasing me, and nothing is keeping me from being able to let go and trust that the direction of my life is going down the path I am trying to create, rather than waiting for things to happen to me. I saw a memory from a few years ago about becoming a confirmed minister in the UCC/DoC rather than going to seminary- in effect, learning on the job. It’s something to explore, because as much as I try to geek out over technology, I can’t be as excited about it as I am about philosophy, theology, and soteriology. As I have sad before, soteriology is the study of salvation, but I am not a big fan of substitutionary atonement (Isaac in the Old Testament, Jesus in the New). I am way more interested in the way we fall and resurrect ourselves. The versatility of the human spirit is hope springing eternal, that things will always get better if you put shoe leather into it. It’s not that I can’t swallow the idea of substitutionary atonement and miracles, it’s that they don’t matter to me nearly as much as the message Jesus presented and the way he went about it.

So what if Jesus bodily resurrected? So what if he turned water into wine? Whether these are oral histories passed down or absolutely real is missing the point.

They are Stories That are All True…. and some of them actually happened.

Amen.
#prayingonthespaces

I have about 20 minutes before I have to leave for the office, so this may be a bit short. I am dealing with a lot, but handling it nicely, or at least as nicely as I can. I feel like I have many more tools for dealing with anxiety than I once did, and am hoping to get word back on a side hustle working for an online wine magazine. I sent the editor different kinds of samples, and we’ll see what happens. Now that it’s out of my hands, I can only “let go and let God.” There’s only so much I can control, and putting myself out there is one of them.

Getting paid for being a writer would be a dream come true… not that I haven’t been paid on this web site. Your donations have literally sustained me over the years, not because I have lived on that money, but because I have been inspired by it. The money that you give keeps the site going, and furthering my education. The last big purchase that I made was a Red Hat certification with which I’m not finished, but mostly because I got a full-time job in a Windows shop and had to put it away so that I could focus on the things I haven’t used in years. #alllinuxallthetime #noDOSever

I don’t have enough experience to be a system administrator, but I do have enough experience to install LAMP servers (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PERL/Python), run and improve WordPress installations, etc. I use WordPress.com because I wanted the site to be about the writing, but there are plenty of times I’ve had my own server space and administrated it well. WordPress just makes it where I can add content and press “Post.” My own server space would entail making sure all the plugins, scripts, etc. are in the right folders, although the plus is that I could add ads, rather than going to a subscription-based model. WordPress.com is not down with that. I am sure that I could hawk “fine hyptertext products” (thanks, Jason Kottke), but for now, focusing on the content is enough.

I might change my mind in time, though, because it would be nice to have income coming in that I don’t have to watch. I’d just want a site like Dooce’s, where the ads are relatively unobtrusive. I’d also be able to add plugins like a discussion forum that’s better than the comments section on each entry. I don’t know what we’d talk about. Probably everything from childhood abuse to ice cream. It’s all important in its own way.

Plus, I’d have the ability to use CSS/HTML to customize themes that WordPress.com does not offer unless you buy a professional package, and what I have found, since I had it for a year, is that it is not as extensible as I would want. Plus, here’s something that’s also very, very important… secure FTP and a shell into my own server.

That may not mean much to you, but it is everything to a web developer.

I’m working through all the Python lessons on CodeAcademy now that I’ve finished SQL, but I am not as far along as Dana because she was the one with the math/logic brain in the family… although I’m sure it was good that Aaron was a ready resource. I still maintain that she could have a six-figure career, but I’m not sure that coding would appeal to her. But maybe now it would. We don’t know each other anymore, and I’m ok with it.

Whatever she does, I hope she’s as happy as I am, with the few caveats of everything that’s going on in my life right now. It’s intense and scary, with no real escape until it’s over. There’s a lot I wish I could share with her, and the fact that she wants nothing from me is enough. I’m not chasing her, ever.

However, I did write a long letter to Argo in my notebook, for two reasons. The first is that she hates reading handwriting. The second is that it wasn’t to mail. Just to talk to her without her talking back. The “angel on my shoulder” trope is working well. I don’t need to have her input to have her in my life, as weird as that sounds. I can miss her on my own, and I never get responses for which I am unprepared.

No chasing, just thnking.

And on that note, I have to go. I just thought a letter in my notebook with all the real things that were happening in my life would help me to get my feelings out while keeping the promise that I would not write about it here and I would not contact her all at the same time. That feeling that I need her is gone; mostly because I realized that my relationship with her was text, and I still have it.

Letters that don’t get answered are still valid and healing, because it’s my emotions spilled on the page and not hers. When I lost that open line to say what I wanted, I realized that I never wanted an escalated conversation ever again… and now they’re not. They’re one-sided and perfect because it’s more like a diary than anything else, because I do my best thinking while writing letters. As I have said before, the chord that was once between us has become a loopback, feeding me. There’s no place like 127.0.0.1.

😛