Lived Through This
It took healthy love to appreciate the abuse I had excused
“Just a heads up, I might write about our relationship,” I recently said to my boyfriend. “But I promise I won’t do it without your permission.”
“Consent,” he said.
“What?”
“Without my consent,” he repeated. “You don’t need my permission to do anything.”
“Oh. Right,” I said, laughing a little, and we exchanged the knowing look — a tender, amused wince — that has become commonplace in our relationship. The look is a mutual acknowledgment that I am really fucked up. Or, to be kinder to myself (which is on my self-care list!), …
This Is Us
Culture taught me to pursue love, then sex, then marriage — but that formula has never worked for me
I don’t remember the first time I said “I love you” to a partner. I know it was my first boyfriend, but I have no memory of saying it to him. I also have no memory of him saying it to me, though I’m sure he did.
I’m not sure I actually loved him. He pursued me and I surrendered. No one had ever taught me that it was okay to say no to something I didn’t want — not to dating and not to sex. So we dated and somehow, over time, I came to… what? Did I love…
Past Is Prologue
The term went mainstream in the ’80s and ’90s, and it’s carried a stigma ever since
By the time I attended my first Al-Anon meetings as a teenager in the ’90s, I had heard the word “codependency” many times. Where? No one in my house talked about it, nor did friends, but it was ambient in the culture at the time. While researching the genesis of this term and its conceptual underpinnings for a memoir about my own disastrous relationship patterns, I realized I’d probably heard it on the daytime talk shows I sometimes mindlessly watched after school.
Codependency had a moment in the late ’80s and early ’90s. But, sadly, when the term went mainstream…
Humans 101
A guide to saying the quiet part loud
“Never be afraid of the conversations you’re having. Be afraid of the conversations you’re not having.” — Susan Scott, Fierce Conversations
Have you ever struggled with saying what’s really on your mind? We all do. When we’re not being fully honest with others, it’s often because we:
- Don’t want to be rejected.
- Don’t want to upset the other person or damage our relationship with them.
- Don’t want the conversation to get out of control.
- Don’t know how to raise a difficult issue skillfully.
However, problems occur when you don’t speak honestly:
- You suffer because you bottle up unexpressed thoughts and…
To what you’re about to read
I asked “When you told your friends you don’t love me anymore, how did they feel?” and you said “Not surprised.”
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Three days later you posted a photo and your friends were like “You’ve never looked happier!!!” and they were right.
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My friends don’t ask me where you are anymore because they know I don’t know.
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I guess we were ships crashing in the night.
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So now my memory of you is like money in a glass case in the sea: beautiful, untouchable, distorted, seductive, sinking. …
This Is Us
The eternal struggle between ‘reward people’ and ‘punishment people’
My brother Kevin had a baby, a beautiful little girl who cries, stress vomits, and has too much gas. I never thought I’d have so much in common with a baby. My brother was prepared for her arrival. He’d been prepared years in advance: wife, house, car, job, money, pets, crib. The last time my girlfriend’s period was late, my life flashed before my eyes like a freight train barreling down on a toothpick castle.
I am a stick person. Kevin is a carrot person. He sees a reward, prepares, does the work, gets it. I see a temptation, run…
This Is Us
The nod as pandemic salute, time machine, and mystical communication device
You’re walking on an empty street in your hometown. Someone approaches and a meeting of some kind is inevitable. To ignore them would be an act in itself, since it almost seems, for a moment, like you’re the only two people in existence. Perhaps there is mistrust or fear or who knows, but there is an antidote, it turns out: the humble nod. That simple movement, if returned, can be a powerful act.
A nod is often something beyond language, whether you’re bopping along to music or offering affirmation when someone is telling a story. The slightest movement of the…
Humans 101
On intuition, instinct, and feminine power
What does it mean to be a “wild woman?” If you’re visualizing someone baring her chest at Mardi Gras in exchange for beads, that’s not what I’m talking about. A wild woman is someone who has a keen sense of intuition, follows her instincts, feels empowered to protect herself and her pack, and has the confidence to pursue what she desires—and not the things that society tells her she should want. I’m talking about the desires she can feel in her bones.
This version of a wild woman has been drastically domesticated. …
This Is Us
How I’m working to parent beyond ego and expectation
“Did you know my Shanna is making straight A’s again this year? And that she made captain of the cross-country team and the speech team? She’s my pride and joy.”
Growing up, my mother never missed an opportunity to brag about my accomplishments to relatives, coworkers, and grocery store clerks. My accomplishments were her accomplishments. She would preen herself on my achievements while I stood by feeling like a show pony.
Sometimes, I let her boasting feed my ego. Other times, I felt awkward and ashamed. “Is this all I am to her?” I’d wonder to myself.
I thought my…
