Thoughts on the Passage of Time, Breakups and the Stories that Define Us

So recently it came up with a newer friend that I had been engaged in my 20s. It's funny how some of our stories become so defining, so integral to who we are. Having our moving van stolen when I was 13 and we were moving to Ohio was something that I thought and talked about frequently in the following years. Pretty much everyone knew that about me, for many it was the first thing that they knew about me. One day when I was in college I realized that I hadn't thought about the theft and the ensuing stress and trauma for a long time. It was really nice. It was nice not to be the girl who's stuff was stolen anymore. It was nice to have other stories to tell people about myself when I was getting to know them.

Anyway, in telling this friend that I had been engaged, but not feeling the need to go into the details like I used to, it was nice to realize that that narrative belongs in my past now too. I even decided to pull up some photos from my exe's family events that I never got around to editing or giving to his mom. (Mostly I'm just way better at taking photos than doing anything with them after.) It's been long enough that I'm hoping that there will only be the fond memories and not the sad ones and anger that I used to feel. And I'm sure his family will be excited to have the photos. We spent a lot of time together and I went to a lot of special family events-- birthdays, a graduation, a wedding, reunions, a funeral.  I even helped with the house remodeling projects as his parents were preparing to sell the house they lived in. Some of those were while I was dating him, and some were between times that we dated. We dated over a span of about 10 years. (I don't want to add up how many months/years we were actually dating, it's depressing.)

For a long time I was pretty angry with him. Even while we were dating. I've been through enough therapy in my life (I was in therapy before we ever started dating) to know that anger is a secondary emotion, that it covers up another more primary feeling. I think my anger covered up sadness, hurt, and even loss. One friend said that breaking up with someone you've been that close with for that long is in some ways worse than a death, because you can't morn them the same way. And it is a morning process. Our lives were so entangled in one another's (in a good way) for so long that it's very hard to not know how things are going for him and what he's thinking about and how his family is. (I really love his family. But one sister-in-law pointed out to me that it would be him that I'd have to live with everyday. Not them.) There was also the profound sense of loss for the future that we had been planning to have together. I remember telling a therapist that I sometimes thought of our relationship like we were in the middle of a swamp. He'd told me about this great place we could go to--marriage--and we were about half way there and got stuck in the swamp. I didn't know if I should keep going forward to try to get there with him or cut my losses and turn around and go back by myself. I was also upset that he had "cheated" me out of a baby. (I was very baby hungry a year or two after we cancelled the wedding.) "But would you want to have a baby in the middle of the swamp?" my therapist asked. No, I probably would prefer to have a baby not in a swamp. No swamp babies, thank you. That's the problem with living in the idealized future. You forget about things like swamps. If only... but life is not like that. People don't change just because they signed a piece of paper and agreed to be legally tied to you. (Thanks to Aunt J for that insight.)

A word of advice from someone that's been there. When someone you know breaks up, DO NOT tell them "it's for the best," "better to know now than after the wedding," or "I never liked him/her anyway." All of those may, in fact, be true, but they are not helpful. Years later I can look back and see that yes, it probably was better not to stay with him. And yes, we probably would not have solved our issues by committing to marriage. And maybe you didn't like him, but I sure did and do and saying that you don't like him because... makes me wonder if you think I'm stupid for loving him and staying with him for so long and forgiving so much (or at least thinking that I had).

I saw Mr. O a little over a year ago. We didn't talk, he was playing prelude for a church meeting and we waved from across the room. It was nice. Much better than I had been agonizing over when I decided to visit the town I used to live where he now lives. Sometimes I have been a little chagrinned that he is there and I am not. I moved to Utah from there to try to make things work with him for the last time. Although there were other reasons for my move as well. It was my idea to move, and I knew that it couldn't be just to be near him. I was ready for a change and wanted to be near family again. I had told him that if we decided to break up, it was the end. I couldn't get on the roller coaster  again, it was too exhausting. We'd been going back and forth for over 10 years, and I needed to be done, one way or the other. It took about 5 months after I moved for it to end. I was in the process of trying out a new antidepressant when it happened, and my sweet 70 something 3 generation family doctor felt bad; he was worried that the switch had caused the breakup. (I think he's waiting to fully retire until I am married.) But I told him no, it may have made me more irritable (we decided in the end to go back to the previous medication) but that the breakup had needed to happen. After we broke up, I realized that if I wanted to, I could move back--my room would be available soon as the lease was ending and my subletter wasn't staying but my roommate was. The woman who had taken my position at work had just found a new job, and I'm sure they would have been thrilled to have me back. I could probably have moved back and pretty much had my pre-move life back, sans Mr. O. But it turned out that I didn't want to move back. And I'm glad that I stayed in Utah: I got to be closer to my brother's family and help out when Ra was born with a serious birth defect; I got to work with a midwife and teach childbirth and breastfeeding; I got to live with my grandparents and cousins.

When I went back last year, it was good to see people. If I wanted to move back now, I could. I was worried about what it would be like to run into him. K thought that was silly when I asked her if I should let him know, since the chances of us running into each other seemed slim. But K wasn't there for the whole saga. Her husband had a front row seat to the first chapter. But she wasn't there when 6 or so months after we postponed the wedding and subsequently broke up, when I ran into his mother, who lived out of state, on my way out of work. And she invited me to lunch, and he was there (I don't remember if that was made clear in advance, it probably was and I was just too nice to say no. There was a large group). And then it turned out that they were going to the same lecture I was going to about forgiveness. Given by his mission president's wife. So there I was, sitting next to his brother, grandmother, mother and him listening to a therapist tell us to write the initials of the person that we most needed to forgive on our hand. It was a helpful lecture, she did talk about giving the hurt over to the Lord. She suggested that we write a letter with all our grievances against the person but address it to God. I was going to try that, but instead felt prompted to write him a letter apologizing for things that I had done. (In true Olivia fashion I wrote it on a typewriter with very little ink left on the ribbon.) I carried the letter around until I saw him at the library, and gave it to him without comment.

So it made sense to me that I would run into him, no matter how slim the chances. And I was pretty sure that he went to the same church that the friend I was staying with goes to, and that most of the Mormons I know from when I lived there are. (The world is much smaller when you're Mormon.) I thought about not going to church there, but I wanted to see friends. And it was ok. In a way it was nice to be on my turf with my friends, even though he's the one who lives there now.

It's hard not to be a part of his life anymore. I'm pass the point of hoping that I marry before he does, and wanting to see some unhappiness as a sign that he regrets the breakup. Sometimes I'll look at his Facebook. He doesn't seem to post much. Maybe he has switched his privacy (we aren't FB friends) but it worries me. I am afraid that he's pulled inside of himself again. The great irony is that, although I was not happy with the way he sometimes treated me, I was one of the few people he was totally comfortable with. I hope that he has enough of those people in his life now.

The hardest part for me, besides being cut out from his life, is being willing to fully trust someone as a partner again. I didn't date much before him, and it took me a long time to start dating again after. It was actually dating Mr. P, who is divorced, that helped a lot with that. We were able to help heal some of the wounds left by our exes absences. But PC and I have known each other for over a year, and it's quite possible that it will be 2-3 years before we committed, if we do end up together romantically. I'm much more cautious now.

But I'm happy with my life, and not feeling lonely at the moment. (It helps that PC and I talk every day.) And I might do foster care in the future, even as a single woman. I enjoy my nieces and nephews, and my friend's kids. And it's nice to not have to deal with the downsides of caring for children. The ease of long-distance calls and video chats make it possible to feel close with family and friends that are far away. In the end, I'd rather roam the swamp alone than with someone with whom things are mostly difficult. Someone once told me that love should be easy, like falling off of a log. I am wise enough to know that it does take work to maintain good relationships, but yes, it probably shouldn't be that hard in the beginning. And for the first few months, it wasn't. That's what made it so hard to let go. I'm not a quitter. But I have learned that there are times to move on and create a different story.

Stories about Dinosaurs

I was raised with boys. I have a brother that's just 18 months younger than I am, and another brother 2 years younger than him. (I also have a brother that's 9 years younger than I am and a sister who is 13 years younger. But there is enough of a gap that much of my childhood was informed by my first two brothers.) Growing up primarily among boys affected some of my habits and interests, as I'm sure having an assertive (that's a more positive word than bossy) older sister affected theirs. For example, I probably would not know very much about dinosaurs if not for them. They were crazy about dinosaurs when we were young. My parents are the type of parents who were happy to encourage any interest that would lead to learning, and so we got library books about dinosaurs, went to museums to see fossils (my dad even arranged a tour of the unseen part of a dinosaur museum with a friend of his who worked there. We got to see how they uncovered and cleaned the fossils), and even took a trip to a place where there had been a significant fossil find. My brothers and I knew the correct names for each dinosaur, what the difference between a carnivore and a herbivore was, and much preferred the video of Maya, which tells what a dinosaurs daily life would have been like realistically, to that of any of the Land Before Time movies. (It was very upsetting to us that they didn't use the correct names for the dinosaurs in The Land Before Time.) Dinosaurs were a prevalent theme in our lives. I don't really think that much about dinosaurs on a day-to-day basis now, but something reminded me of my childhood love of dinosaurs the other day, and several memories surfaced. So I thought I would share them here.
* * *
The other day, I saw a woman walking a three-legged dog. The dog's front right leg was missing. The dog didn't seem at all bothered by it's disability, it moved confidently and happily along. However, I found myself thinking: “Why would you want a dog who was missing a leg?” But then I remembered a toy dinosaur that I had when I was little—somewhere around 5 to 8 years old. It was a plastic inflatable Apatasauraus, my favorite dinosaur, about 16 inches long and 10 inches high—just the right size to tuck under your arm or snuggle with. Although maybe not as naturally cuddly as a stuffed animal, I thought nothing of including her among my favorites. I think that a plastic dinosaur made more sense to me than a stuffed one—they were cold-blooded, after all, and didn't have fur. I had gotten her from a dinosaur museum that I had visited with my parents and brothers, and so she had those happy memories associated with her. One of her legs, I think it was the back right one, wouldn't inflate. I don't remember if we discovered this before we bought her or after, but rather than being upset about it, the defect endeared her to me. Sometimes I would rub the place where that leg met the body. I loved that dinosaur, and felt very protective of her. I named her “Pat.” (Clever, right?) Once I even insisted on taking Pat to church. I put her on the floor, next to the coat rack, with my boots during the services. When church was over, she wasn't there. I was devastated. My father patiently searched for the church with me, and finally found her—deflated, in the garbage can. I don't know if someone saw the bad leg and assumed that she was no longer wanted, or if it was a teenage prank, as my father guessed. But after being dusted off and re-inflated, she was just fine. I wonder whatever happened to her. I wouldn't be surprised to find her carefully packed in a box in my parent's basement.
* * *
My brother S especially loved dinosaurs, and at the age of 4 had plans to become a paleontologist one day. He wasn't the most adventurous eater. One night at dinner, my father attempted to get him to try something that he was refusing to eat, by saying, “But what about when you are a famous paleontologist, on a dig in the Middle East? They won't have the types of food there that you are used to, so you'll have to try new things. Why don't you start practicing now, by trying this?” S prompted replied, “When I am a famous paleontologist and I go on digs, I will bring a whole refrigerator full of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with me.” I don't remember my father having a response to that.
* * *

I don't remember how this game started, but it was probably my father's invention. Whenever anyone said “Parasauralophus,” which is a dinosaur with a ridge that protrudes from the back of it's head, they were asking to be tickled. We referred to it as “the tickle word.” If one of us kids said it, our dad would chase after us and tickle us. If he said it, any one, or sometimes all three, of us would attempt to tickle him. Usually we didn't want to be tickled. But we delighted in trying to come as close to saying the tickle word without actually saying it. Sometimes we would team up—I would say “Para”, J would say “Saura,” and S would say “Lophus.” Other times we'd start out the word, but end it some other way. My dad would sometimes try to catch us off guard by holding up a toy Parasauralophus and asking “What dinosaur is this?” We had to make some rules for the game. One that my mother insisted on was that if we were at the table, we couldn't tickle. She made this rule to keep the game from interfering with dinners, but sometimes we would yell “Parasauralophus” and then run and grab hold of the dinning room table, claiming immunity. When we were teenagers, the game persisted with our younger siblings, cousins, and even the children in the daycare my mother ran. But now we were part of the adult team. One of the girls invented a new rule—she added an anti-tickle word, “bubbles.” If you said bubbles, it cancelled out Parasauralophus, and you couldn't be tickled. It's a great idea, although almost makes the game too easy. It will be interesting to see if this game continues into the next generation, and if the tickle word stays the same.

Sping Preview

My windowsill in full bloom.

The last few days have been sunny and warm. On Thursday J and I went to Central Park. It was beautiful. We ended up at the Bethesda Fountain. On the terrace was a group of break-dancers with a large crowd, and along the other side of the fountain was a cellist. There was no water in the fountain, so we climbed in and sat at the base of the statue. It was nice to bask in the sun and watch the cellist and a little girl who was playing nearby. J said that being inside the Bethesda Fountain was probably the best place that anyone could hope to be.



Here is a photo of the fountain when it does have water in it (and a bride & groom in front. This is the photo I could find, from a wedding I photographed.)

Soon the cellist packed up and a saxophonist started. J was hoping that they would play a duet.

Later we saw a couple under a tree standing facing a woman with an open book. We stopped to figure out what was happening, and decided they must be getting married. (Although we didn't see any witnesses.) There was another couple standing near us, also watching. They turned to us and the man said, "we're next, then you!" It's always interesting to see who assumes that we are a couple and who assumes that we are siblings. It did seem like the perfect day to get married--early spring, one of the first really beautiful days, in a park teeming with happy people, under a tree, privately.

We headed back toward the temple, where I was volunteering that night.

Here are the other plants on my windowsill:



The bonsai elm from J & W.



An orange seed that I planted.

The bulbs that I planted around the trees outside the community garden are also coming up:





It's nice to walk past them and realize that I helped!

We'll see how long the weather holds.

My First Celebrity Crush

I don't often have celebrity crushes, but the one that stands out most in my mind is the first one I ever had, at the age of 6 or 7. I was in love with Billy Joel. I knew that he was too old for me, so I fantasized about marrying his son. (As it turns out, he doesn't have a son, just one daughter, who is 4 years younger than I am. His third wife, who he divorced last year, is my age. So I guess that I do have a shot at him, although he is 32 years older than I am, and I've moved on in the last 20 years.) Somehow, this crush came up at work awhile ago. My boss was surprised, since he doesn't consider Joel to be very good-looking. But at the age of 7, I loved the photo of him on the back of the greatest hits album, with his crazy-curly hair, almost a fro, and his jean jacket slung over his shoulder.

In our home in Utah, my parents had a record player, along with a selection of records from their lives before children. My mother often put on records for my brothers and I to dance to--although our definition of dancing was loose--more often marching or hopping around in a circle. There are photos in my photo albums of us in over-sized tee-shirts, probably our pjs, rocking it out. We did learn to be careful not to dance too close to record player--it had a tendency to skip when you jumped up and down right next to it. One of our favorite albums was Billy Joel's Greatest Hits. As a matter of fact, that was one of the first CDs I bought as a teenager; I think my brother and I bought it together. When I was leaving for college, we fought over who got to keep it. I won. He later bought another copy. (This was before we had i-tunes and could have continued to share from the one copy.)

Today I pulled up i-tunes on my computer to listen to some music while cooking. Billy Joel's Greatest Hits came up. It's funny to think back about the ideas I had about certain songs as a kid. I often took the lyrics very literally--I imagined the woman in "The Stranger" jumping ninja style to give him a swift kick in the face. My very favorite song from the album as a kid was "Only the Good Die Young." I am baffled by this now, and unsure why, or what exactly I thought the song was about. I wanted to be a good girl--I guess that the idea of dying young sounded somehow romantic. I remember envisioning volcanoes erupting during the song, I have no idea where this image came from. I certainly had no idea what he was really talking about. I did, and still do, like "Just the Way You Are," "Tell Her About It," and "She's Always a Woman," for pretty straight-forward reasons (although that last one is a little twisted, if you think too much about it. I still like the sentiment). "You May Be Right" is another good one. At the lyrics "turn out the lights, don't try to save me," I envisioned him left alone in a dark room, trying not to be sacred of the dark. "Remember how I found you there alone in your electric chair" brought an image of a row of beauty parlor hair-drier chairs. I think that we even had a mini-record of Alvin and the Chipmunks with a cover of that song. Why anyone thought it made sense for the Chipmunks to sing that particular song is beyond me. For the song "Goodnight Saigon," I remember my mom telling us that Joel had not gone to Vietnam himself, but knew many people who had. When I was in high school, we had a Vietnam vet come to talk to us, and he used the song to start off his presentation, which was very powerful.

Another song that has a very different meaning for me now than it did when I was younger is Cat Steven's "Wild World." As a kid, I always imagined it as a father singing to his daughter (I think that the lines "I'll always remember you as a child, girl" and "don't be a bad girl" gave me this impression). He was giving her advice as she grew up and left him, even though he was having a hard time letting go of her and letting her be an adult. One day a few years ago, listening to this song after being in a relationship that I wished would have lasted, I can see it as him singing to a lover who is leaving. I wish that I had the same grace and goodwill towards my ex as he expresses.

Given my love of Billy Joel and Modern Dance, I am surprised that I didn't see the musical ballet "Movin' Out," which is made up of several of Joel's songs and choreographed by Twyla Tharp. It was showing in NYC when I was in for my internship during college. Maybe I didn't see it because ticket prices were too high. Or maybe I didn't want anything to dilute my memories and associations of the songs from childhood.

Dreaming again

Do you ever dream that you are waking up? Sometimes, in the morning, when I need to get up but can't yet, I'll start to dream that I am waking up, getting out of bed, and going into the bathroom. But then I'll realized that the bathroom that I am in is very different from the real bathroom in my apartment. So I'll try it again. I'll get up, walk into the bathroom...no, still not right. When I slept in a loft bed I would be convinced that this time I really was getting up, going down the ladder, I could see each step, feel my body moving. But then I'd get to the bathroom, and it just wouldn't be right. I'd have to start all over. Sometimes I'll go through this 8 or 10 times before I really do wake up.

I reminds me of a nightmare I used to have as a kid, where I'd be in this huge house with lots and lots of rooms. I was lost and scared. So, I'd start to look for my parents room. "I just need to go up the stairs, to the end of the hall, the door on the left," I'd think. I wanted to wake up and really go to my parent's room, but instead I'd just try to go to it in the dream. It was the same helpless feeling, where I was trying so hard to really do something, knowing the steps to do it, but not being able to really get it done.

Once I dreamed that my bedroom, which is on the 4th floor of an apartment building, had a back door that lead out to a grassy hill. People were picnicking and enjoying the day. I wish that were true.

The Day the Garlic Press Died

So, I was cooking lentils today, and wanted to add some garlic and onions. I got out my garlic press, and a bulb of garlic. One clove went through fine, but when I put in the second clove to press, the press cracked! I didn't cut off the tough end, like I usually do, and I guess it was just too much for the press. I'm sad, because I got this garlic press when my oldest (though younger than me by 18 months) brother came to visit me 7 years ago--has it really been that long? I was a sophomore in college, and he was shocked to find that I didn't own a garlic press. (He cooked for me while he was there. Weeks later I found all my hot pads on top of the refrigerator. Which, since he is 6'6" is probably a reasonable place for him to keep them.) So he, my best friend/roommate, and I went out and bought a garlic press.

We didn't get a fancy one that doubled back to clean itself. We just got a basic one. And today it died. A noble death. At least no pieces ended up in the lentils. (I hope!)

I made the short list

You would think that since I'm in my late 20s, am done with college, and have held the same job in the "real world" for at least 2 years, I would be comfortable thinking of myself as an adult. But much of the time, I'm not. I still often feel like a 17 year old who is waiting for life to really start. But every once in awhile, something happens to me, or I do something, that make me feel like I really am a grown up after all, and life is the way I imagined adulthood would be.

One of these moments come one summer in college, when a friend and I got together and canned cherries. When I was little, my mom canned every summer, and often we'd get together with her sisters and mother and have a huge canning party. My brothers and I would help wash the fruit, slice or pit it, and neatly slide each piece into the jars under adult supervision. So by doing the whole process myself, including the actual sealing of the jars, I was taking my place as one of the women. When I told my grandmother that I wanted to can, she gave me her old canning pot and jars. I looked through some cookbooks and searched online, and then called my grandmother to find out her exact method. (For one thing, she uses much less sugar than most recipes call for.) Then my friend and I bought a couple of boxes of cherries and other supplies, and spent a Saturday afternoon canning together. A smaller group than my aunts and grandmother, but a enjoyable one none the less.

Home canned fruit is so much riper and tastier than store canned. My grandmother had cherry trees for many years, and I so she would often serve us bowls of home canned cherries, giving us an old lid from a jar to spit the seeds into. My mother would usually get some of the cherries from my grandmother's tree, and we had apricot trees. She would can apricots and also make jam, which she would give out at Christmas. We loved all the canned fruit, there would usually be peaches and pears too, but she'd tell us that we needed to save most of it to eat for the winter. When I canned cherries, I probably only did about 9 bottles. I did try and keep the last one for a special occasion, but it never quite came. I think I finally ate it before I moved, so I wouldn't have to worry about it breaking during the move.

A few months ago, I was telling my dad about another adult moment I had experienced. (Now I can't remember what it was exactly.) He shared with me his one of his pivotal adult moments. It was when he was discussing sprinkler systems with a friend, since he was going to have one installed in the front yard of the house he'd recently bought. His friend pointed out that this was something only adults would talk about. I laughed about it, but was also a little shocked, because at that point in his life, he already had 3 children, of whom I at age 5 was the oldest! I always assumed that having children would make you feel permanently like an adult, but I guess I was wrong. Of course, I also assumed that marriage and children would come naturally and in my early 20s. That I would be a mother before I was an aunt. (I'm not married, and don't have children, and am not yet an aunt. But I may be an aunt before I am married, and I decided one day on the subway that if I don't get married, I'll still adopt at least one child.)

Tonight I got a call from the husband of that very same friend that I canned cherries with. At first I was surprised that he was the one calling me, but suddenly I realized what he must be calling about. Their first baby had been born! (This is the baby that I made the pink sweater for.) She arrived a couple days ago, and is now at home with her parents. Both mama and baby are doing well, and dad was dispatched to call with the news. I forget her size and weight, but her middle name is Eve.

This is the first time that I have been called personally by proud new parents! Usually I find out later by email (or blog) or through a family member passing on the news. But I'm a grown up now, and have close friends who are having babies, and are calling (or having their husbands call) to tell me about it. Hurray!