Why are you even here?

It’s a question every one of us should be asking ourselves constantly, because otherwise, life slips by and children grow up and it’s all over.  A few weeks ago in our gospel, Jesus talked about using him while he was here. In John 12:35, it says: “you only have the light just a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, before darkness overtakes you.” If we translate that into metaphorical terms, we can extrapolate that Jesus is trying to build the new church before he is crucified. It is as if he is pleading with them to listen, but they are so full of their daily lives that they cannot see Jesus’ vision….. even though they’re trying. He’s just one of those guys that whenever you talk to him, you come away with more questions than answers. Even today, most of Jesus’ parables are thought of as thousand-word jigsaw puzzles, which is why there are still theologians duking it out on a daily basis. The disciples argued amongst themselves in the same way after Jesus was gone, because the darkness had indeed overtaken them and they wished they’d been more attentive.

However, we’re not there yet. Jesus is still alive, trying to see his vision implemented, and he has a very clear idea of his management style. We’re in the Upper Room with Jesus, where Passover is going on around them. This is a quiet, intimate celebration with just the 13 of them…. the original posse, gathering into themselves. The Disciples do not know that it is their last Passover with the physical Jesus, but he does. The pericope for today begins with him:

Before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him.

It seems to me that if you are looking closely for the heart of Jesus, you’ve found it. These words are sticking with me today…. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. This is not about anyone but the 12 people who voluntarily stopped everything they were doing and said, “yes, I will follow you.” Not only that, they stuck with him while everyone else thought that he was crazy. When he was crucified, people put a sign on his cross that laughingly, sarcastically called him “the King of the Jews.” People SPAT on him. Ultimately, though, who’s loss was that? Jesus did not need those people to believe him. He needed his FRIENDS to believe in him, and that everything else would flow from it. In a very, very real sense, the Disciples served as his defensive line. Jesus is in his bubble. You don’t get to see Jesus. Have some wine.

Because of this, he knows he is indebted to them in a way that he cannot repay. They don’t have any money to speak of. They beg wherever they go. So, in a way, if I had to guess at Jesus’ thought process, it was that he could still give them the gift of himself, because in a way, isn’t that all we have to give?

He takes off his outer robe and kneels at the Disciples’ feet, and you have to understand the context. This is not a time in which people bathed regularly. This is not a time when people generally wore protective shoes for travel. When you are talking about washing someone’s feet in a time like that, you are not lightly wiping. It is hard work, because you are taking off the dust of other times and spaces. It is in this moment that I identify with Jesus the most, because I fall down on the job all the time, but this is the type person that I want to be…. the ideal version of myself that doesn’t hesitate to drop everything and serve when it is clear that I am needed.

That is exactly the mindset he wishes to instill in the Disciples….. leading by example because as the leader with not much time left, he has to prepare the next generation. Has to teach them how to be Christ in the world after the Ascension. Has to go through the pain and suffering and betrayal, knowing that there’s not a damn thing he can do to change the outcome. What is it possible to do in the time we have left?

Show them how to use power with, instead of power over. He doesn’t order everyone to take off their outer tunics. He takes off his. He doesn’t demand that the Disciples wash his feet, he gets a cloth and water himself. You don’t lead people from the front. You encourage them to desire to want to serve you, and there’s a big difference between people who want to follow you and people who feel like they’ve been swindled into it because they love you and don’t want to disappoint. Think of it as the difference between being drafted and choosing to enlist. I have never been in the military, but I would imagine that your outlook on it would be different if that is the life you could voluntarily choose, instead of having it chosen for you.

Jesus takes the power given to him by the Holy Spirit and uses it not to lord, but to serve. He is worthy of praise and glory not because he demands your agreement. Jesus is worthy of praise and glory because that is the life you chose…. you serve him because HE SERVED YOU FIRST.

Tonight as you go to church, what will your agreement with Jesus say to you? Will you acknowledge that you serve him because he serves you? Do you see the way that Jesus serves you, or do you only see the ways in which you serve him? Following Jesus tends to take on three basic personalities:

• The Maid
  • Constantly serves Christ, but filled with unworthiness, so the love between the self and the Christ is a one way street, one blind to the other. Capable of giving so much, and does… without remembering all of the ways that Christ takes care of them, too. If you think that this is outdated language, think of all the times you’ve served your friends without expecting repayment, because you don’t think you’re worth it, anyway. They get the most out of you, and you get seething resentment because the relationship is so unequal. Think Martha of Bethany, who complained that her sister wasn’t working enough when Jesus and the Disciples crashed at her house. Martha was giving of herself, not realizing that there was just as much in store for her if she stopped working and joined the rest of the group.
  • The Mechanic
    • Consistently tries to see both sides of an issue because surely there’s a fixit somewhere. They ruminate on facts, trying to put the puzzle pieces together of any problem anywhere. Generally in the middle of the theological spectrum, because to take one side or the other definitively is to declare loyalty, which is detrimental to objectivity, their main strength in the body of Christ. These followers generally allow for tremendous artistic growth in a church, because they are happy to run the business side of things. Someone has to keep count of how much is in the treasury and if we have money for grape juice and challah (Holla!). They are consistently under-appreciated, because the work they do in a church goes virtually unnoticed. Because of this, I have a drive to exalt them, because other churches aren’t so great about remembering that managing the books and making sure that the bills get paid IS serving a church, with gladness and singleness of heart. Remember that Thomas, even though he doubted Jesus’ bodily resurrection, wasn’t being a jackass. He was just a different personality, and as you can tell, Jesus invited Thomas to check out whatever facts he needed.
  • The Martyr
    • My Palm/Passion sermon re-framed the classic image of the word “martyr” in my mind. The classic interpretation of a martyr personality has become warped over time, so that they look needy in life, instead of what they actually are- the sacrificial lambs of our time. Unlike Biblical literalists, I do not believe in competitive suffering. I do not believe that what Jesus suffered was any more or less traumatic than any of the other people crucified that day. I do not believe that Jesus suffered more than the Jews during WWII in Nazi Germany. I do not believe that Jesus suffered more than the Cambodians under Pol Pot, or the Ugandans under Idi Amin. Martyrdom is when you go against the grain, knowing that something bad could happen, but putting it away. If it is the focus of their thoughts, their productivity wanes. The Martyr functions best in a “honey badger don’t care” kind of way, because to give up their power is to render them useless. Martyrs believe that they can change things through their lives, not by dying. It is just unfortunate that the more people who are moved by your words, the more people there are who become dissatisfied with your style of leadership…. which sometimes ends in tragedy.

Of these three types of Christians, where do you fall? Actually, even if you are not a Christian, can you identify your personality in any of these types? I think we all fluctuate between the three, but in serving Christ we have the ability to become martyrs ourselves, but not in the classic “she’d be fine if there was someone to stop by and wipe the blood off her cross every day” kind of way. That kind of martyr is self-obsessed, while real martyrs are too busy thinking about the ways in which they want to change the world to notice that others are unhappy with them. Martyr is a badge of honor for serving something in which you believe until death. I have talked before about living in darkness because you want to; this is just such an occasion. If you serve a sin, you’ll reap a lot of them. If you serve a mission, you’ll reap a lot of them. It is your choice. This is not to bag on Atheists in the slightest, because it does not require God to know whether you are serving darkness or not… because ultimately, this is not about God. This is about you.

The thing that we ask ourselves in this Holy Week is if we have the power to be that brave. Do we have the power to ignore outside influences to create the dreams that the Spirit will endow IF ASKED? When they wash your feet tonight, remember that they are choosing to serve you. What are you going to do to serve them in return? Lead from the back. Trust that your defensive line will be able to protect you. You have your friends that you will love until death. Those are the people whose opinion desperately matters, because if you have the will to wash others’ feet and the will to lead with soft power, you are literally living in Christ’s name all day long. So be brave. Be BOLD. If there’s anything in the pericope that encourages bravery, it’s that leadership doesn’t have to be top-down. Sometimes the people raise you up.

My hair is a little bit Harry Potter-ish. It grows in every direction. Better to keep it short. Thankfully, it doesn’t look half bad. 🙂 A new haircut really helps when you are going through the motions a little bit. It’s hard to engage, because everything is just so SAD. My heart has been through the ringer on two fronts, even when it didn’t have to be. I made it happen. I was in a bad place. I needed someone else to talk to besides Dana, and I got it. It is just unfortunate that once those conversations started, I didn’t stop them. I tried. I really did. But the more I ran away, the more I felt guilty, because I knew that I was compounding the problem instead of solving it. It didn’t get me any closer to Argo to argue with Dana. It didn’t get me any closer to the bff/wife/me triangle that seemed like it was going to take and slowly faded into madness for all of us.

it was just one of those days where i didn’t want to feel sad. I wanted to take control of my mood and do something that made me feel better… like going to the grocery store and buying the things I like. For instance, now I have four boxes of tea, all loaded with caffeine. It is not PG Tips, it was on sale. Please forgive me. I know what I’ve done, and I repent.

I also bought cookies, apricot, to go with said tea.

I bought all the processed sandwich stuff I like that Dana doesn’t. I’m the odd duck that likes the loaves. I got ham and cheese loaf, pickle and pimento loaf, and olive loaf. I am pretty sure you couldn’t pay most people to eat that shit, but OMG NOM NOM NOM.

And an artificial sandwich isn’t complete without Velveeta.

Portland, don’t give me shit about organic right now. I am not taking in many calories, so I have to shop based on what looks good to me rather than trying to balance meals, because meals do not happen. I am not that kind of eater. I’m the bird that will steal from your plate, instead. 🙂

It’s one of the most legendary stories ever told. Jesus riding a donkey through the gates of Jerusalem to a crowd of adoring “fans,” knowing that the hour is upon him and this celebration is going to be short-lived. In fact, in the liturgical calendar, it’s the same Sunday…. the celebration, and then the stab in the back that causes Jesus to lose his life. He knows it’s coming, but he can’t say anything yet. Now is not the hour. Now is the time to look pretty for the cameras, and remember to show his good side.

Do you ever have to do that?

Do you ever have a feeling of dread that you know what’s coming, but you’re not there yet? It’s time to smile and get through it, knowing that the situation will likely not end well. But you do it anyway. Grin and bear it, as they say. Can you picture the scene? Can you picture what this clown parade did to Jesus on the inside?

You know where he is, because you have experienced it yourself…. just maybe not during a public event… but let’s not forget that some people have.

Just a few days before his assassination on April 14, 1865, Lincoln shared a recent dream with a small group that included his wife, Mary Todd, and Lamon. In it, he walked into the East Room of the White House to find a covered corpse guarded by soldiers and surrounded by a crowd of mourners. When Lincoln asked one of the soldiers who had died, the soldier replied, “The president. He was killed by an assassin.” The play he’d come to see, “Our American Cousin,” was an absolute farce. I can imagine laughter coming through the sense that his legacy would be secured in death, because his dream is particularly involved…. along with a recurring dream that he needed to sail as fast and as far as he could.

Smile. Grin and bear it. Show your good side.

It was November of ’63, and the air had a slight chill to it when the car turned onto the parade route. I imagine that there were lots of people chatting with excitement to see the real-life version of Camelot. It was a site- the president in an open-air car so that everything seemed brighter, closer… memories that would live forever, especially after The Passion. Kennedy knew that in some factions, he wasn’t well-liked. In fact, according to Jackie Kennedy’s oral history about the president, he had a premonition that he would be assasinated. She said that after the Cuban Missile Crisis, Jack said, “if anybody’s going to kill me, they ought to do it now.” When the news was revealed, it seemed like he had a death wish. He asked a historian, “if Lincoln had lived, would he have been remembered as the great president that he is?” The historian, David Donald, said probably not, because he would have had to deal with the consequences of Reconstruction.” From then on, Kennedy knew that his legacy would be somehow secured in death.

Smile. Grin and bear it. Show your good side.

Queer as a three dollar bill. Hailed as the Mayor of Castro Street. Widely loved as a city supervisor, but not immune to the fact that as a gay public figure, he was not winning brownie points with everyone, even in San Francisco. The office was quiet as Dan Brown gunned down both Milk and George Moscone, the actual mayor. Though Milk often covered up his pain with a bright and bubbly countenance (my name is Harvey Milk, and I’m here to RECRUIT YOU!!), the tapes of his last days are morose. He knows the tension is building between gays and people who hate them, but he’s at a loss as to what to do about it. So he did what everyone else seems to do, which is dance around the issues in hope of getting support for some of them. You can’t win them all. He certainly wouldn’t.

Smile. Grin and bear it. Show your good side.

My mother used to be a music teacher in a REALLY bad neighborhood. A third of her kids’ parents were in jail. She was and is still remembered there as one of the greats- the teacher that all the kids wanted to be near all the time. But there were kid fears that stumped even her, like a black child who came up to her and said, “why would anyone want to assassinate President Obama?” She’d heard on the news that there were death threats because he is black.

How do you deal with those questions? Especially when kids just nail your heart like that?

Smile. Grin and bear it. Show your good side.

It’s Palm/Passion. Joy and anguish. Life.

Every day is Palm/Passion for someone, and sometimes, we are loathe to respond. We gather into our own pain, because it is easier. Helping someone else requires understanding the situation- who has time in an iPhone world? No illness is a five second soundbite. Poverty, hunger, thirst exist and pleas fall on deaf ears. We don’t want to get involved…. and yet, there are moments that astound us into either the Palm or the Passion set of emotions. I believe that this is just such a moment for Jesus.

Hear the words of Mark:

While he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head. But some were there who said to one another in anger, “Why was the ointment wasted in this way? For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and the money given to the poor.” And they scolded her. But Jesus said, “Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has performed a good service for me. For you always have the poor with you, and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish; but you will not always have me. She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial. Truly I tell you, wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.”

Palm and Passion in the same breath.

Every day is Palm/Passion for someone. What are you going to do that promotes their resurrection into wholeness? How are you going to enjoy their glory while you have them?

I have said many times before that everyone has an inner angel and an inner asshole. We fluctuate back and forth between these two characters in our heads all day long. Sometimes, we feel ten feet tall…. and others, it’s just ten inches. It’s Passion and Palm in a repeating pattern that will either further your life or end it. Casey Cease, one of my favorite preachers of all time, said something in one of his sermons that sticks with me to this day…. “I LOVE MY SINS!”

We all do, don’t we?

Every day is Palm/Passion for someone.

Which one are you?

Stream of consciousness blogging is not so much writing as workshopping. Some ideas will get fleshed out later, but most of it is just rambling. ON PURPOSE. It’s not supposed to be thought of as anything but where my mind goes for the few minutes I’m sitting here. I have all kinds of thoughts, but very few actions. My thoughts limit me a lot, and that is the focus of my therapy. Why have I been so committed to sabotaging success? Part of it is that I don’t believe that these sorts of things are supposed to happen to me. I get into the rut of “I’m just a….” I am working to change that, because I am not entirely sure I’ve ever had a job that showcased my talent rather than my weaknesses.

I am very socially anxious at work. I cover it with a lot of bright and bubbly, but the truth is that I avoid people at all costs…. because obviously, I am not doing as good a job as everyone else, so why call attention to it? I berate myself for small mistakes and blow them out of proportion so that every time I see someone in authority, I go to the smallest place inside myself.

Or at least, that’s what I have been like since I was 16 and started working as a receptionist at SuperCuts. Anxiety day in and day out. Every day I’m going to get fired. Every day is one more day that I’m barely hanging on, etc. So emotionally laden that I couldn’t drop what I was thinking about to make room for something else. It was the same way when I was in school. All of my emotional problems combined to make school a hellish place from 7th grade on, because although I attended, I wasn’t really there. I had no ability to save myself, because other people needed me and they were more important. All my kid energy went to pulling an adult across the river, or at least, that’s the way it seemed to me.

Carrying all of that anxiety made me fatigued with no realization that I was dragging ass and I could do something about it… because I’d always moved like this…. perhaps because I’d been sad for longer than I would have liked to admit, and everything takes longer when you’re so in your head that the rest of the world fades away. It’s like being locked there, because you cannot own the rumination and tell it to go away. It’s a constantly running tape filled with fear and unworthiness, but luckily, mine is starting to wear down, and hopefully with friction it will snap and my whole brain will be mine again.

For now, though, people do not see my thinking as creative, because it’s much more convenient to take the fact that I was hospitalized and see the blog through that lens rather than seeing it as one narrative… sometimes impossible to do because I realize that I skip subjects a lot.

That’s because this is not a book. A book has an editor. A book has an ISBN. A book is prestigious. A book also takes at least a year, possibly two or three, to be written and edited to final copy. My words are “all over the place,” because unlike most conservative Republicans these days, I think about things and CHANGE MY MIND. I am capable of taking in and synthesizing new information so that I have different opinions on different things. If you read them in the same day, you’re going to think I’m talking out of both sides of my face.

No. That is not reality. Stream of consciousness tells me how I feel in real time, and it changes. To stay stagnant is to close your mind to the possibility of new things….

….all over the place.

Dana invited me to come over to her apartment for pizza, but she doesn’t have any furniture except her bed and a couple of patio chairs. She said I could fall asleep next to her if I wanted. I woke up at three in the morning because as you can imagine, I did not sleep well. I tossed and turned in what used to be my old bed and just got more confused by the minute. I got up around 4:00 and made coffee, then I went out on the patio and just read. When the sun started to come up, I woke Dana up and told her that it had gotten weird and I was going home. I do not like this dance of “let’s be close” to my face and what a horrible manipulator I can be behind my back. I constantly feel as if Dana is trying to tell me what I want to hear… but at the same time, if that were true, why would she be inviting me to spend time with her? It is a question for which I no longer have tolerance. It’s too much cognitive dissonance to feel valued and devalued all at the same time, and I have other people in my life who haven’t been in a toxic relationship with me for the past two years to fall on.

That is because Dana and Argo both accuse me of revisionist history, but do not explore why I would say what I’d say. To them, it’s just crazymaking that I would say I’d fallen in love with someone without meeting them. It is inconceivable to me that Dana does not understand this, given the way that she moved to Portland (which is her story to tell, but if you know it, IT IS APT.) Argo does not understand the ways she participated in me wanting to be near her in the first place, and sees it as toxic that I would consider leaving my support system here, because it comes across like she thinks that she would be my support system there. We only know each other through letters. Why in the world would I want to see her without mutually agreeing it should happen? The idea of meeting in person is SUPER intimidating to me, and as far as I’m concerned, I could live a lifetime without it happening. Even if we did live close, it wouldn’t mean that I would treat her any differently than I do right now. I never forget that the physical plane exists, and so does travel. If we’d wanted to get together by now, it would have happened already. To me, adding flame to this fire is just a way to make me seem crazier than I really am, which is plenty. But at the same time, not that crazy. There are more reasons to move than there are to stay, regardless of whether Argo and I ever speak again…. particularly true because I loved not having to drive and being able to take public transportation everywhere. But it is just a future that never happened, or hasn’t happened yet.

If we were going to meet, it should have happened early on, before our minds connected to such a degree that we couldn’t go back and undo or unsay anything. Argo has said that she is sorry for the way Oz was revealed, and all I can say is “right back at ya.” I am so sorry that I am not THAT writer for her anymore. I am so sorry that I cannot light her up from the inside with laughter. I am sorry that her opinion of me became so low at my own hand, because I could not express everything that I wanted to say that would put my behavior in context. She talks frequently about my manipulations. But hers are there, too. The difference is that in our relationship, I’m the manipulator, and I should know it. Because why would she ever manipulate me to get what she wanted? That street has gone both ways for many, many months. So why would I stay in a toxic triangle like the three of us created? None of us realized how harmful it was right up until it was a flaming disaster, least of all me.

Argo has no idea how much impact walking with her on HER journey changed ME, but I can’t talk about it. I can only speak to my own experiences, and the only other person that was there for those conversations was Dana, so there is no one else in the world that knows the depth and breadth of our relationship before it got weird and we both picked up our toys. I went home for good reason. However, I feel that I should say it out loud that it wouldn’t matter if she lived across the street. Physical location doesn’t mean much to me at all, until it’s been two years and there’s been no regular friend-normalizing stuff to interrupt doing lines of emotional crack on each other, while she says that I only know “random factoids.” It is not revisionist history to say that the relationship was great AND it changed me in ways that I will never get back. There’s a reason I spiraled out of control mentally. I am not trying to be revisionist. It’s that in Argo’s case, there’s a lot I heard from her that affected me just as much as talking to her. It was a mutual relationship by all counts, until Argo passive-aggressively accused me of something I didn’t do in order to pull away from me because she knew that my feelings for her were growing. The fact that she lied to cover up her real motivation was a huge fissure to me, and though I hold no ill will, it established to me that she was capable of messing me up, and her line about not manipulating me was insulting. This was fairly early on in our relationship, and the pedestal I fell from cracked my face. I never gained any ground with her after that, but the changes to me and in me had already begun. I was not in a place where I could think about anyone else but the two of us, but that’s another set of confidentiality issues and in no way romantic. Just personal.

All of my mental issues were held out in scrutiny, and I think that’s all I need to say about that. We all have our own quirks, and I hope that part of my charm is realizing I needed help for mine.

Dana and Argo are furious with me because they think that I am a monster/mental patient. I am furious with them for thinking that out of this goat-roping clusterfuck, I’m the only one that needs help. It is so much easier to point fingers at other people than it is to own your own shit, but it did not earn me any style points with either of them to tell them so. I wanted them to look at me like, “if she can do it, maybe we can, too.” The reality is soul-crushingly opposite.

They both tend to read my writing without follow-up questions, which leads to a lot of inference and not a lot of direct communication. I am definitely ok with this, because anyone who really wanted to know how I was doing would probably be wise to ask me. Why should I care about conversations that are not of me? It was not like this in the beginning. In the beginning, Argo said that I had amazing insight. But then I became human to her, not the writer from afar, and all of the sudden my insights weren’t so great anymore.

For instance, I remember that I sent her an e-mail talking about her dad; she thought I was in attack mode. I was actually trying to open up a dialogue about both of our parents, but that is not what came across to her. She thought that I was trying to say something bad about him, and I wasn’t…. but if you were just inferring into my words and not asking me what I meant, you could certainly take it that way without context. That, to me, was the breakdown in communication. Neither Argo nor Dana could see me in context anymore, because they both enjoyed the idea that I was the crazy one…. but when they did see me, life was amazing. As things began to break down further and further, people around me began to think that I was losing it. In some ways, I was, but not for the obvious, on the surface reasons. I was losing it because of everything that happened subcutaneously. I once told Argo that she’d gotten under my skin in a different way, through words. I cannot and will not ever tell you what those words were, but they were a game-changer, and I reeled. Of course my emotions were spiraling, but I cannot put it into any more context than that.

I am accused of revisionist history all the time. That’s because it’s my history, not yours. I am sure that you have come away with different impressions of me over the years- some valid, and some not- and that is the same way I feel about you. I have come up with lots of presuppositions and theories about who my readers might be, what lines stick, and how I am going to bring this site into the future.

It is not what everyone remembers about the situation; it’s what I do. For instance, if we’ve been fighting a lot, but we had a really good moment, I will carry the good moment with me instead of all the bad ones. That way, when I look back at our history, I have a rich tapestry of all the reasons why I value and appreciate you.

When you voluntarily ask for help with mental illness, it’s a mark that doesn’t go away. It will affect me for the rest of my life if I let it. But the truth is that I should have been hospitalized at 15. Then I wouldn’t look like such a crazy adult, because maybe I’d have been able to salvage the last three years of childhood.

I changed her name in my phone. It was a lot easier after I took my wedding ring off.

Goodbye, Naganalanad. May our relationship rest in peace.

My house is 1565 square feet. The lot is 8,000. I am just one person, rattling around in this huge house that looks like it’s been torn apart in an investigation. There’s dust everywhere. The whole house looks like it needs CPR. It got that way from both of us being too depressed to really take care of a house like this. The yard is a nightmare, so we’re doing what you do in Houston when you’ve gotten yourselves fucked with lawn care….. call in the Mexicans (YAY MEXICO!!!! I got my jersey.). Dana likes it when I’m here when we have Spanish speakers, because even though mine is a bit broken, I can usually get my point across. Dana does not even watch Dora the Explorer. When she was moving out, I told her to get on Duolingo and learn some fucking Spanish, because in this neighborhood, life is SO MUCH EASIER. Dana’s neighborhood is the same, so I believe it is essential. When we go to taquerias, she just lets me order unless there’s numbers. 🙂

I am not knocking Dana in the slightest. I recommend that if you’re going to live in a Hispanic neighborhood, learn the language. Stop it with your “in America, we speak English” bullshit. You have no idea what would happen if all the migrant workers were deported. Enjoy your eight dollars a pound tomatoes, dumbass. Strain your brain- Spanish is easier than English by a MILE. All the verbs have five conjugations, everything is spelled like it sounds, and Hispanics fall over when they realize that I can comprende. I know I’ve told this story before, but it’s apt here. I was in line at Fiesta and these women in front of me were making fun of my short hair, baseball cap, etc. I turned around and said, “soy blanca, no soy sordo.” That means, “I am a white girl, I am not deaf.” Their mouths dropped and I didn’t hear a peep out of them. Serves them right. Apparently the girl that looks like a boy has your number, bitches.

So, to get back on topic, this house needs tias all over the place, because three tias and a prima will use Fabuloso, and as Ralphie May says, “it gets out third world dirt.” Yes. Yes, it does. I like the purple stuff. In fact, I mopped the kitchen floor with it before I sat down to write this. Maybe that’s why I’m writing about it. I need to explain why I am so overwhelmed with the state of the house, because Dana did not clean a thing before she left, nor did she mow the yard. Now I am slowly getting to all of these things, but I am hoping that wisdom prevails. I can clean the hell out of a house. I am scared of lawn mowers. I have a very good reason for this. My grandfather ran over his foot once. I am the biggest motherfucking klutz in the entire world. That is the kind of thing that would happen to me. I would like to avoid it at all costs.

However, I am not lazy. I will do it if I have to. I just don’t want to. There’s a difference. Mostly because Dana has been saying that she was going to mow and every time she has time, it has been pouring down rain. Our lawn looks terrible for a somewhat valid reason, but I am getting tired of waiting for it to be done, and there are several things that intimidate me. First of all, weeds have taken over. I don’t know what to do. Do I mow them down or dig them out? We got the house because Dana likes to do this shit and I don’t. I am envious beyond belief that she has a tiny apartment that looks easy to take care of with no lawn maintenance whatsoever.

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I gave up. I just called Dana in my most anxious, smallest place and said, “where are we with the lawn people? I need help. I cannot do ALL THIS on my own.” She promised to come over tomorrow and help. It feels nice to know that she just didn’t have time to clean and she’s coming back.  I am sobbing as I write this, because I have just realized how empty my house feels. My entire world lives ten minutes away and I feel so alone, even though I’m not.

Actually, in a sense, I AM all alone. There is no one that can work their way out of this mess but me.  I will be so glad when all of the work on the house is done, because then I won’t constantly be plagued by the anxiety that comes with dust bunnies on the floor and Diet Coke cans I’ve opened and put down somewhere and forgotten. This morning I found a sip of whiskey on the coffee table… I’d asked Dana for some of her Rebecca Creek, which she gladly gave me about 3/4 of a shot, because that’s all I asked for. I just wanted a taste…… apparently, because I put it down and forgot about it, too. I am the classic creative personality. Someone should just follow me around picking up all the things I put down, because I promise I will not remember where I put it even five seconds later.

Based on this, I have no idea where anything is. The Danabase moved out. I am going to have to create my own systems of organization, which as a Virgo makes my skin buzz with excitement. Cut to three weeks later. What system? Unfortunately for Dana, I think it made her want to stay around longer than she should’ve. I put so much on her because I literally couldn’t do it for myself. I slid so far that she would have to bring me stuff to eat, because if she didn’t, I just wouldn’t. Too busy, too consumed. Not an eating disorder. A thinking disorder. If I take time out to eat, what am I missing? Ditto for sleeping occasionally, although I have medication for that.

I just realized that I have anti-anxiety medication. Maybe that should be my first move. Feeling a little bit short of breath, which is a sign that I need to take something before I get into attack mode. When I get panic attacks, the hyperventilation is pretty fucking impressive. I don’t want to live there.

But in this type situation, I am not sure that it’s avoidable.

I have realized over the past few months that I can be an incredible narcissist… but let’s focus on the “can be.” Anything I have learned in the way of narcissism is a way of self-preservation, because I do not have the safety and security of knowing that you’re actually going to keep up your end of the bargain…. that you’re actually going to love me as much as you say, that I can relax and rest in it. I am going to be on the receiving end of love.

This is because I have so many abandonment issues that I cannot even. I am slowly working on them, because it is my journey into wholeness. I treated Argo like crap because I needed her to pull away and I all but ensured it. The closer we got to figuring each other out, the more I realized that I was in a world of uh-oh. This is NOT supposed to happen. I am NOT going to fall for a straight girl because that is an impossible situation that will only drag me through the mud and I am not secure enough to tell Argo that I do not love her, I am in love with her, and the only solution is for you to disappear while I get my shit together, because this is untenable for me. Dana is freaking the fuck out.

I’d already broken her heart once before, so I couldn’t just do it again. It would have killed me inside. So I started an enormous fight so she wouldn’t want to talk to me, anyway. It shouldn’t ever have happened. I should have “manned up” and gotten the confidence to tell her that we needed to separate because my wife thinks that I’m already out the door, and that is CLEARLY not the case. I can’t breathe without thinking of her on the inhale and the exhale. I cannot let a threat in, even though the only threat was me. It was easier to pretend that although Argo was never going to be in love with my body, she was in love with my mind, as well.

On the Internet, as every chathead knows, sexuality and gender fly out the window. In the first few minutes of chat, I was hooked. Absolutely hooked. THE FIRST DAY. To the point where I said straight out, on the FIRST DAY, “intimacy on the Internet is relative. We are pouring emotions into each other. Let’s not let this get out from under us, ok?” I wasn’t necessarily saying it for her benefit………………

Because exactly what I thought would happen did. Emotions turned to love quickly, because we weren’t dealing with practical jokes and gin. I’d hoped we’d get to that point eventually, but I think our “stranger on a train” was exactly that….. stranger than anything I’d been a part of, certainly. It was an unusual kinship. We didn’t relate to each other with our senses, except visually because there were so many words between us. We didn’t even meet, and I will regret it wholeheartedly for a very long time. I think that a lot of our problems had to do with my being Argo’s “stranger on a train,” and after we went deep, the thought of creating a relationship in real life was way too damn scary to contemplate. What would we be like in real life? Would our intimacy translate into nights lying on the couch watching Netflix with wine and popcorn?

It did not.

I can’t speak for the future, but the past is a tapestry. Neither of us want to look in each other’s eyes, because we don’t want to see the feelings that lay beyond them. For me, I could not meet her without wanting to step off a plane and run into her arms.

As a straight girl, I can see how this might be………… intimidating. I am working on concentrating on how she feels. I need to get my ego out of the way, because I was only lost in me and what I felt and how my marriage was coming apart and I didn’t notice until it was WAY too late. Nothing Argo did caused this. I mentioned earlier that she said she didn’t want to be the reason that I didn’t work it out with Dana. I need to speak more to this. I did not EVER think that Argo loved me in a way that was equal to my level of emotion. That conversation did not have to do with romance. That conversation was based on “we’ve been tight for two years, and Dana and I are both horrible to each other at times. You know it. If we got back together, could you accept her? Because what friend would ever advocate for getting back into a bad relationship? I needed her opinion, and I do not think she saw my point, because I asked her the question without the tremendous context. It was not intentional. It was my brain moving too fast for my fingers. Or maybe it was intentional. I cannot decide. What I know is that even though it is neither, it is both.

Dana and I bought our rings at an event called “Festival of the Last Minute” in Portland at Saturday Market. It’s the last drive before Christmas, and it is a ton of fun. We found no end to the humor that two ADD people bought commitment rings at a ceremony with the title, but hey. We were young (no we weren’t) and stupid (actually, not so much). I remember that day so fondly, because we took a picture of our hands with our rings on and everyone thought we’d gotten married, and it was just the first set of rings we’d ever worn. I think we’d been living together for a few years at that point. Yes, we had our legal documentation saying we were domestic partners, but had never gone through a wedding. We’ve been planning it since that night we won trivia and figured out we didn’t love each other. We were in love with each other. But somehow, that did not translate into ring shopping. Again, two ADD people. Festival of the Last Minute.

Hundreds of comments poured in, and I felt so blessed and supported in my decision to marry Dana when everyone said it wouldn’t work. Who said it didn’t work? Seven years is enough time to really know someone, to really know what love is.

Love is when Dana has hives.

Love is when I am ash-white and sweating because my brain chemicals aren’t right.

Love is knowing that Dana and I would both step in front of a bus for the other one.

Love is accidentally forgetting we’re not married anymore, because my drive to protect her is fiercely engaged.

I realized it when I was walking out to my car at Aaron’s, that I cannot forget we aren’t married anymore. It’s just not possible for me, because I will as long as I let myself. I’m amazing like that. If it hurts once, why not let it hurt a thousand times?

I slipped off my ring and dropped it somewhere in the grass…. walked a few feet…. and then I couldn’t see it anymore. I panicked because I couldn’t see it and thought, BUT THAT IS THE POINT.

……and slowly kept walking.

Remember that I told Jesus I was free Tuesday? Well, lucky for me, he showed up. I didn’t know whether he would, because honestly, I have won the Shitty Friend Award™ with him. We haven’t talked in a while, and we should be talking incessantly. Why have I been avoiding Jesus? The same reason I always avoid Jesus. We have so much to talk about that I cannot even. I am grieving Argo and Dana and our lives, both jointly and severally, because I don’t think for a minute that either of them are over what has happened the last two years. I didn’t mean to, but I put off Jesus to take care of my thoughts about them, first.

Why do Jesus and I need to talk incessantly? Have I mentioned that I started my own religious organization (oh, like a THOUSAND times…………. #prayingonthespaces)? Douchy preacher/author mode: engaged. The reason that I have created a doctrine is that in order to get a 501c, you have to have a belief statement first. This is not to say that I would not join a major denomination once I am ordained. It is just not possible right now, unless by some miracle Jesus is able to work it by letting the UCC or the Episcopals or whomever approach ME. There are plenty of denominations that would be willing to either ordain me based on a work study program, or license me to preach and offer rites such as communion. I am biding my time, gathering up the crumbs under Thy table, knowing that God’s property is always to have mercy. I stole that line from the Book of Common Prayer. If you’re an Episcopal, you probably said it in your head as you read it.

And on that note, I would like to close with my favorite prayer from Rite I, the Prayer of Humble Access. It is my Lenten anthem, because it says everything about the work that I need to do from Palm Sunday to Easter.

Most merciful God,
we confess that we have sinned against thee
in thought, word, and deed,
by what we have done,
and by what we have left undone.
We have not loved thee with our whole heart;
we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.
We are truly sorry and we humbly repent.
For the sake of thy Son Jesus Christ,
have mercy on us and forgive us;
that we may delight in thy will,
and walk in thy ways,
to the glory of thy Name.

Most Sundays I cry through the entire thing. I know I’m gathering up crumbs, but I know that the resurrection has so much in store for me this year that I don’t need to make up with Argo and Dana anymore. I need to make up with Jesus. He’s the one I sit with in silence with his arm around me.

He seriously cleaned me out at Starbucks. Do you HAVE to get a venti, Jesus? Really? You’re gonna have to pee later.

It is late and I am ending my day as I began, with anger, grief, hope, and joy. Those four feelings will be my elements in thinking about Dana and whether the resurrection takes. For me, the resurrection can go two ways. Either we go back to being friends without incident, or we will fall madly in love again and recreate a second act better than the first. Either way, we’re planning on living happily ever after.

I went over to Dana’s new apartment after all the moving was over, just to see how it looks. To get a sense of where she is when she says she’s in the living room. Settings matter in phone calls. I want to picture her talking from wherever she is. As she puttered around, I sat on her bed and listened while she chattered on about anything and everything. It was nice, adding to that friend normalizing behavior. But then she said, “I’m going to soak my feet. My sister does it every night and I think it would be good to start.” When she said that, I thought, “this moment is too intimate for me. I cannot stand here and watch this happen.” Everything within me was telling me to leave, but I went to her as she sat on the edge of the bathtub and kissed the back of her neck. I don’t know what I was thinking. Maybe that we could date each other? I don’t know. Too soon. What I know is that I needed to kiss the back of her neck, work up to her cheek, and let the tears flow. I just kept sobbing, “I’m sorry….. I’m sorry……”

Dana finished washing and turned around to kiss me in my grief, saying, “I know…… I know……” Finally, I said, “are you in a place where you can’t say “I forgive you?” She said, “I don’t know myself well enough to know what I did, so I can’t know what you did, either.” It was the best answer anyone has ever given in the history of anything. God, I love her. I picked the one person in the world that COULD handle this….. and I stole that line from Argo. She believes in both of us more than we deserve, and yet, we never really bonded that way as a group. Dana and Argo never really put shoe leather into their relationship, so it was this constant feeling for me of in-laws fighting over my attention, which they both deserved but could not settle on a visitation agreement, mostly because Dana, right or wrong, thought of Argo as a threat.

When I was finished crying, Dana did say that she forgave me, and I got the overwhelming sense that it was time to go home. I did not want to be exclusive with Dana, and I realized that if I stayed one minute longer, it was perpetuating the idea that we were just going to be married in two different houses. That is not reality, and I know it. Now that I’m in my bubble with just my thoughts and no one else’s, I have decided I like it here. I do not need distraction from it. I am driven to succeed, and I believe that is the first time I’ve ever said that in my entire life. Before, my attitude was, “everything’s going to turn to shit, anyway, so why even try?” I am such a perfectionist that if something isn’t perfect, I will throw it in the garbage. I am slow and intentional as not to make mistakes. Not with this blog, of course. If you want to see my real style, you’ll have to buy my books. This is my stream of consciousness. This is not what I slave over. I slave over ideas bigger than I’ve ever had before. Because of Argo and my blog, I see that I have the power to reach millions of people, so why not do it? Why not say yes to the possibility that because I am asking, the universe will answer?

Argo was 100% right when she said, “why do you think it’s everyone else’s job to fix you?” You do not have any self-preservation when you’re as fucked up as I have been. You don’t ask for things. You wither away into nothing, because that is what you feel you are. You just wander around, trying to latch on to things that will propel you because you do not have the ability to propel yourself. You’ve already given yourself away. There’s nothing left for you. Like I said earlier, I got an A on Meag’s senior paper and a C on mine. But you know what? When people come to look for my qualifications, I doubt they’re going to give me credit for her work with her name at the top.

The funniest exchange of this whole saga was that I sent Argo a note that said, “could you please send me a 12 page report with graphs and pictures on how much you like dick? It would help. Thanks.” I got desperate. Dana, please don’t push Argo away I need her get with the program please I am changing please please………….. on and on and on and on…… a never ending ostinato (is there any other kind?). When we got to the two year mark, I decided I’d had enough from both of them. I am too much of an introvert to be happy with giving all my energy to people who don’t like each other and have me in a tug of war whether I liked it or not.

I did not.

I finally called bullshit. Nothing could convince Dana that I wasn’t going anywhere. That I was so much of an introvert that she was always going to get the majority of my time. She worries when i get lost in the cloud. I will never say that I have not earned this level of scrutiny, and at the same time, nothing went to Argo that Dana didn’t see. She read every word, including the e-mails where it was CLEAR how bad I was struggling.

I can only hope that I did something right by trying to explain my intimacy with Argo. That I’d, in a sense, married her based on confidentiality, loyalty, and the fact that I thought we’d be eating cheesecake like Dorothy and Rose until we died. But she will die first because she is SO MUCH OLDER (I love you. You complete me. [You cannot imagine the hole I’ve just dug, I assure you. It’s good that lives a thousand miles from here, otherwise I would be on the receiving end of some kind of noogie 😛 ]). If I could predict what she would reply to that, it would probably be something along the lines of, “have fun with your Garanimals, jackass.”

I love my silence. I love my inner world. I love that Argo saw it and called it good. I love that Dana has forgiven me for letting Argo live there. Even when I know that neither of them can be with me in physical proximity, they sit at my shoulders like angels ready to jump in when I need them. I had that realization when it got weird and I went home. I do not want to be Dana’s first in her new bed in her new house. I have been grieving this loss for quite some time, because I could see it happening minute by minute, hour by hour. I need separation from both of them, time with my headphones and my keyboard.

It’s Lent all over the place, and I’m doing it right. Sitting alone. Reflecting. Repenting. Counting on what Bill Lupfer at Trinity Wall Street calls “islands of mercy.” That is because in the Bible, there are 40 days, but on the calendar, it is 46. That is because you don’t count the Sundays. Sundays are the Mardi Gras of Lent. You can enjoy everything you’ve given up.

My Sundays are spent trying to enjoy Dana and Argo in my head as the magnificent women we are supposed to be, together, instead of the broke-ass pattern we have now. I’m exhausted. I feel like Jesus on the cross, because during crucifixion, you can breathe in, but you lack the ability to let air out. This version of me is ready to die. I have this vision of being new by Easter.

If Jesus can do it, why can’t I take my shot?

Dana’s stuff is moved out, and because neither of us had a complete set of anything, now the house looks weird. Like, there’s some furniture, but there’s no TV. There’s bookcases, but very few books. I am sure that I will slowly rebuild those things over time, but right now, I am just happy for silence. Dana and I both have outer layers that are bright and bubbly. Mine is completely broken. I cannot even. I don’t want to. I want to sit in this mess that I have made and WORK IT OUT. Surely there’s something I could have done that if I went back and undid it or unsaid it, things would be okay again. But that is not reality. I did a lot of things wrong, continually, every day, because they became coping mechanisms. You know it’s not right, but you do it anyway, like being the boss and not carrying smokes because you don’t have to. Somebody’s always got a cigarette for Daddy, and no one will find them on you. So are you a smoker? That’s how most people convince themselves they’re not.

I loved my sins where Argo was concerned. She was straight. Did I have an affair with another women? That’s how I convince myself I didn’t. I know it’s not right, but I do it anyway. There’s no other word or set of words that can describe my behavior except willful ignorance. In my opinion, Dana was falling down on the job and it couldn’t go anywhere with Argo, so what was the harm?

The part I always forget. The harm to me.

I felt like the fact that I always kept it in my mind that she was straight was what made it okay. I didn’t realize that by continuing to let Argo grab my attention, it was changing my heart, anyway. If I go by the axiom that loving God doesn’t change God, it changes me, then just insert Argo where God is. I did.

I am not being flippant. Argo was the human ear that received my prayers. As I told her many times, I write to God. You’re just icing.

Of course Dana was threatened by that. I was, shit! The line that kept going through my mind morning by morning was that it was getting harder and harder to feel the way I felt about Argo and be married to someone else. At first, I thought that was because of my feelings alone. That I was torturing myself. Then I realized that it wasn’t the two of us. It was the three of us. They both wanted me. They both needed me. Which one was more important? The straight one or the gay one?

Dana said that she felt like the only thing I ever needed her for was sex. Is it bad that I engineered it that way because she was too depressed to be able to give me anything else? It’s a spectrum. It is neither of these things, and yet, it is both. What I know for sure, though, is that in the case of three being a crowd, I can safely assure you it’s all true.

I am in a bit of a funk because I had one of those ideas that only I could have and it has vanished because I didn’t fucking record it. I am going to have to learn to organize my “brilliance….” In quotes because I have lost the battle to the universe and submitted gracefully. I know my enormity of talent in fucking everything up. Come on. I have to be number one in something. I am full of hope, peace, and love for the future in every way that I was angry and brooding over the past. It wouldn’t let up, and I didn’t know why. I mean, I did, but Argo articulated it in a manner where I could listen. It wasn’t that I didn’t know it was FUBAR, it was that my feelings had never before been validated. When she spoke, my heart flipped in a way that it had for no other, because she became my dragon slayer. Every bit the fairy tale I’d always wanted. So we didn’t mutually fall in love. Bummer. But what I know for sure is that she changed the way I see myself. I am older and wiser than I thought I was, and I realized why. When the light bulb came on, I saw myself at 14, whimpering inside all the time. And then Argo walked into my life, and when she took my hand, I couldn’t look backward anymore.

McSweeney’s Internet Tendency has a section called “OPEN LETTERS TO PEOPLE OR ENTITIES WHO ARE UNLIKELY TO RESPOND.” Here are a few of mine.

Dear Mr. President,

When I look at you and Michelle, I really can’t decide who’s hotter. Seriously.

Love,
Leslie

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Dear Stash Chai,

Your enormous degree of black pepper is what makes me love you best in a truly, madly, deeply kind of way. I want to marry you, because gay marriage in this country is a slippery slope.

Eternally yours,
Leslie

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Dear Adam (the bee that landed on my blanket at the last Outpost Block Party) ,

When I think about you, I cry. Seriously. I am not making this up. I am very emotional when it comes to you and the plight of your people. I mean, I’m writing to a probably dead bee. Do the math. However, I am a line cook at heart. Not a very good one, but one that struggles to be excellent. I am the Salieri to Kinkaid’s Mozart, but I am betting you haven’t seen Amadeus and wouldn’t get the reference if you were alive, anyway. If by happenstance you are still here, you should really check it out.

I know that you hate being called Adam because your name is really Bill, but Adam is my favorite character in Bee Movie. Get over it. We’ve had this discussion before. Don’t you buzz at me, young man. I have a newspaper and I know how to use it.

But the point about being a line cook is legit. When I think about honey with truffle salt sprinkled over the top, I lose my shit thinking that it won’t exist if we don’t DO SOMETHING.

I’m in your corner, buddy. Thanks for sitting with me. I never would have realized how cute and furry you were without being able to look at you that close up. You kind of look like a micromuppet.

Yup, that’s your new nickname. If you don’t like it, I will use my newspaper to change your name to Eric. Hope you like it Cyril Connolly, bitch.

And if you don’t get that reference, we can’t bee friends anymore.

Love,
Leslie

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Dear Hill Country Fare Diet Soda,

Thank you for giving me back a piece of my childhood. Thank you for being there for me in all of your sugar free strawberry, grape, orange, and pineapple glory. Thank you for being a little bit over-carbonated so that when you crack open the can, there is a very satisfying burst of energy and little bubbles that tickle my nose all the way to the end. Strawberry, thank you for being sugar free and still clearly tasting like diabetes. It’s the little things in life that turn out to be the not so little things. I once read an article about how lower-income people who can’t dream of travel should allow themselves small indulgences to make their daily lives more bearable. I realize that spending is not saving, but at the same time, it does make life look a little better with you in my hand on a daily basis. When I get mad at myself for spending money on soda, I comfort myself by saying “at least it’s not Starbucks.”So ya got that goin’ for ya. Hope it helps.

Love,
Leslie

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Dear Howard Schultz,

The first time I went to a Starbucks, my girlfriend picked me up before school so we could go on a date early in the morning. It’s important to note the time of day, because the sun wasn’t up. It is important to note the date- it was December.

I’m going to reiterate that. It was December, the sun wasn’t out, and I HAD NEVER BEEN TO A STARBUCKS BEFORE. I have no idea why, but I ordered a frappucino. Oh! I know. It’s because I like weird things and I’d never heard the word before. My girlfriend said, “are you sure? It’s got ice in it.” Inner monologue runs thusly……………………….

I will not let this girl think I’m an idiot. She already kind of does, so this will just enable her to tease me for the rest of her life….. some more….. I don’t really know that much about you, whether you’re gay or straight, but if you’re straight, you know the PARTICULAR pain of standing in front of a woman who is laughing at you.

By the time we made it to school, I was a popsicle. She knows this now. At the time, she thought I ordered them all the time…… because that is what I told her.

Love,
Leslie