11. Everyone Says I Am Pretty

I was ripping into a bag of dried apricots with restrained ferocity while the sun beat down on the Trader Joe’s parking lot.  Nothing else registered on my sensory radar until I tended to my blood sugar, and only then did the little voices begin to poke through my awareness.

“Hi Allison!  HI ALLISON!”

“That’s not Allison,” asserted a woman’s voice, and I looked over my left shoulder, noticing a small brood of children waiting as their mother gathered her purse and infant from their minivan.  Two little boys were staring at me, just beginning to realize that I was not Allison.

“She’s old,” remarked one of the boys, and the other agreed, “Yeah, she’s old.”  The mom looked back toward me and I smirked, my mouth full of apricot, pointing at myself while nodding to jokingly agree, “yep, I’m an old lady.”  She smiled apologetically as she informed the boys, “She’s not old, she’s younger than mommy is!”  Her own age was unapparent, and it occurred to me that I, too, could have had several children by now.  I’m very thankful that I don’t.

I inserted my car key into the driver side door and hoisted my bag across to the passenger seat, tuning out the family on my other side, but catching a single word from one of the boys’ continued commentary: ugly.  “That is not a nice thing to say, young man!” the woman’s voice responded sharply, and I launched myself into my car, closing the door quickly.  I half-hoped she would march him over to my car, knock on the window, and make him apologize for the audible insult.  I also thought that “not a nice thing” was much less direct than “mean”.  But I tried to ignore all of it, turning on the ignition, reversing out of the spot, and pulling away from the parking lot and the nasty little children.

Don’t get me wrong.  I like kids well enough, and once I get to know them, I’ll fawn over them to the same degree that most other people will automatically do at first sight.  But the whole unfiltered honesty thing, amongst other qualities, is something I don’t always appreciate.

“You always bring me back down a peg when I’m getting too inflated,” I said to God, smiling ruefully.  Buoyant confidence has been refreshing after so many years of stifling insecurities, but it’s a weird dance to find the balance of self-assurance and humility.  I’m crafting a me that I feel proud of, and in the process, I’ve made spiritual, emotional, logistical, mental, and physical shifts.  The latter is the murkiest to navigate.  In a relatively short amount of time, I changed my hairstyle, pierced my nose, and got bolder spectacles all while inadvertent weight loss became apparent.  I remember telling Amie several months ago, “I want to change my whole face.”  I thought it sounded unhealthy, those words coming out of my mouth, but I was genuinely dissatisfied with the look I’d maintained for nigh on fifteen years, and restless from the constant churning inside me, this cycle of change into which I’d been thrust.  I had forgotten all about what I said to Amie until people didn’t recognize me, thinking that the pianist at church had been replaced with a new girl, doing double-takes when they saw me up close.  Then I realized I had gone and done it, changed my whole face.

People are constantly telling me how great I look now.  “You get more beautiful-er every week!” exclaimed a woman at my church.  “I’m just happy,” I told her, smiling.  A friend who I don’t often see met up with me for a dance workout, and when I stripped down to my shorts and sports bra, her reaction was simply, “Skinny!”  Having a lifelong complex over the word, I automatically replied, “it’s just an illusion.”  But even strangers regard me differently now, as though I have emerged from a blurry background and suddenly come into focus.  Boosted by the attention, my typically tentative and mousy ambling is becoming more of a deliberate stride.  I converse comfortably with people, whether I know them or not.  Guys are asking for my number.  Friends who haven’t seen me since last year walk up with widened eyes.  More than ever, I feel confident in my skin.

But yesterday, after I pulled out of the parking lot of Trader Joe’s, I flipped open the vanity mirror on my car’s sun visor.  I peered into my reflection for a moment before the light turned green, looking disapprovingly at my too-short and unevenly cut bangs (trimmed by Yours Truly to save money), realizing again that my glasses might look hip to some but grandmotherly to others, and examining my feathered lipstick, which I’d hurriedly applied on the way to work after taking half a sick day.  I felt off balance from a couple of weeks of poor nutrition (that’s the nice way of saying “ingesting crap when I bothered to eat”) and sleeping five hours a night instead of my requisite seven.  The night prior, I’d prayed myself into a crying fit, trying to loose some vague frustrations while they mounted like shaken carbonation.  Both my inside and outside were a little frazzled.  But I doubt that’s what the little boy in the parking lot was talking about.

Old.  I am getting older, sure, and that scares me.  I’ll start chatting with a cute guy at a show and realize I need to do an age check.  Twenty-one?  Okaaayyy, it was nice talking with you, I’ve got to go now.  I’m too old for you has become a real phrase that I can utter unironically.  Middle-aged folks roll their eyes when I say that I feel old, telling me I’m just a baby.  I say I’m old on the inside, where it counts, and they laugh.  It’s all relative.

Ugly, though.  That one is harder to brush off.  The glow I’ve been emitting of late is largely from hard-won happiness, as I told the woman from my church.  But I still find plenty of reassurance in outer beauty, to which people respond favorably.  One of my bandmates, a rather handsome drummer, recently told me that my face is really symmetrical.  I don’t know if he’s aware of the studies associating facial symmetry with perceived beauty, but either way it was a compliment, and I stored it amongst the chorus of voices from the past handful of months that ring out, “you look great!”  It took but one small voice of dissent to make me wonder, was it true?  I kept flipping open my sun visor mirror to check.  Despite my discomfort, I knew I probably needed a ding to my ego for balance.  To be reminded that not everyone thinks I’m darling or a special snowflake, but also – more importantly – that my beliefs about myself cannot hinge entirely on what other people think, whether it’s bad or good.  Basic stuff, but I’m still learning it.

Yesterday, I looked into the mirror for longer than I’ll admit.  But in the end, I smiled at my reflection and decided I liked what I saw.

10. I’m Right For You (Even If You Aren’t Right For Me)

My friend Miguel once told me that he was a “last stop”.  More than once, he had dated someone, gone through a breakup, and watched as his former lady friend became engaged to someone else soon thereafter.  He shook his head dejectedly as he described the phenomenon.  To me, it was ludicrous.  He’s an outstanding man, and eventually an outstanding woman will recognize his glaring awesomeness and they’ll go forth with confetti and rainbows and stuff.  So these chicks didn’t get it, fine.  Someone else will.  Confident of this on his behalf, I was less than sympathetic to his apparent plight.

Well, perhaps I shouldn’t have been so dismissive.  Guess who else has developed a magical knack for steering their dates in the opposite direction?  If you guessed “Tisket”, you are spot on, friend!

Ah, the anti-destiny.  There are many ways to describe me, but I had never considered that one.  But within the last year, I can count one, two, three different individuals for whom I was a last stop.  Journey with me, if you will:

<flashback>

Andrew – I’m saving the full story for multiple other posts because there’s way too much here to cover in one go, but the most concise version I can muster is that we dated for about three years, lived together the whole time, and when he abruptly cut things off and moved out, it took a grand total of three weeks for him to meet someone else, ten more weeks to get engaged to that person, and eight weeks after that he was married and adopting a son.  Ta-da!  Magic.

Keifer – While Andrew was off writing his whirlwind romance in real time, I was mostly a crumpled heap in the apartment we shared (in which I still live) (which we’ll talk about later).  To prevent myself from thinking, remembering, feeling, and breaking down perpetually, I made myself busy.  Really busy.  Gigs, counseling, TV marathons with the girls (not alone, an important detail in case you’re taking notes on survival strategy), pole classes, church events for churches I didn’t attend, concerts, a walking group, going to the museum and observatory, friends’ shows.  It was at the latter where I met Keifer, a nice Mormon guy in his early thirties.  We each had a friend in the same indie electropop band, and we started to recognize each other in the dancing mass of hipster kids.  Chatting amiably led to a night walk, coffee, dinner, a movie.  It was never clearly dating, but simple company was comforting.  Then he showed up to our friends’ show with another girl, a cute blonde.  He introduced us, and I danced alone that night.  Later, he explained that he’d met us at the same time, that they went to church together and she was his age, but that he was drawn to my energy.  I nodded, wary of being someone’s MPDG.  He kissed my cheek, summertime ended, and we fell out of touch.  He and The Blonde got married a few weeks ago.

Mel – After being featured performers in a hapa jazz event for Christmas, Mel and I hit it off pretty well.  He was a full decade older than me, but I didn’t feel the age difference (which my sister would later point out as a red flag).  Since Keifer and I had only been “hanging out” as opposed to “dating”, this was my first acknowledged dip back into the dating pool.  His jazz chops were respectable, and he felt the same ethnic ambiguity with which I grapple.  He was funny and irreverent, and before nervously introducing me to his friends, he took me aside to explain that I would be a curiosity to them because he “wasn’t too prolific on the dating scene”.  When he came over to watch a movie at my apartment*, he put his arms around me on the couch.  I tilted my face away so he would not see the silent tears streaming down my face.  I had spent hundreds of nights with Andrew in this same spot and position, and it was as though I had photographed that memory, cut him out with scissors, and pasted a stranger in his place.  It didn’t take long for Mel to figure out I was still in a raw emotional place, despite my attempts to appear coolly collected yet warmly available.  When his friends introduced him to another girl my age, I shut my mouth and tried to appear neutral as she began openly flirting with him online.  He slowly dropped off the map, and Facebook broke the news when they became official.  I texted him congratulations, he texted back an apology that read like a form letter, and we never spoke again.  He and she are still going strong.

</flashback>

Each time someone would wander into a rapid embrace of happily ever after, I wondered what the hell was so wrong with me, why I was so easy to leave without so much as a goodbye note.  But I knew the answer then, and even more so now.  On one hand, I was broken.  And even someone with White Knight Syndrome would be hard-pressed to engage with that brokenness voluntarily and long-term.  But just as true is this: these guys were not right for me.  And I had to accept that conversely, I was not right for them, even at optimal Tisket levels.  After swallowing that slice of humble pie, I can now laugh at the whole episode.

Relaying all of this to Amie, we joked that Miguel and I should date so that we can utilize our Last Stop effect for mutual benefit: once we break up, our next relationship will be The One.  Ha!  If only it were that simple.  But to be honest, I’m glad it isn’t.  I’m still in development.  Closed beta, if you will.  And while working out the bugs is painful, each adjustment brings me closer to the program I was designed to be.  And even if those other dudes didn’t get that, it’s fine – I still have hope that someone will.

*I do not recommend watching your favorite movie with someone until they are firmly established in your life.  Otherwise, pearls to swine!

9. I Don’t Talk To Strangers

Setting:
11pm last night, exiting Target with Amie, plotting a night of nail art and gabbing.  She planned to try multicolor neon stripes on black, I was smitten with purple glitter.

“Good night,” called a pleasant voice, and I raised my gaze from the glitter just in time to catch a glimpse of a handsome dude in a security uniform as Amie and I walked into the night.  Keep walking, I told myself, but my head rebelliously swiveled back for a second look, failing at nonchalance.  Was he looking toward us?  There wasn’t enough time to verify it before I turned back to the direction the rest of my body was moving, and I initiated small talk with Amie to cover my tracks until we reached my car.  We opened the doors, sat down, and simultaneously exploded into, “Did you see that guy?!!”

Okay, good.  It wasn’t just a blur of good vibes from Nail Art Night that was both making me giddy and suggesting that strangers look better than they actually do.  I mean, Nail Art Night is said to be the sober version of hitting up the bar.  I think.  (According to me, just now.)

I started to pull out of the parking spot, musing, “I kind of want to get his number.”  Amie corrected me, “You’d have to give him your number.”  Now, I don’t do this number exchanging business unless there’s an artistic collaboration in the future – I’m all business when it comes to the phone, something I learned at an early age (another story, another day).  I’m also very guarded about my own contact information, certain that everyone is about to rip me off, spam me, prank call, list me on an embarrassing website…some say paranoid, I say let’s be real now.  But halfway through the exit, I made up my mind, put the car into park, pushed on my hazard lights, and apologized to the car behind me that swerved around my sudden stop.  Maybe re-parking would make more sense.  I turned back around.

“I need something to write with,” I said, rooting around in my purse nervously.  They were starting to close the doors to the store.  “Got it,” Amie said, producing a pen.  “And I need something to write on,” I continued.  “Got it,” Amie said, producing a notebook and tearing out a page to place on top of the notebook, now serving as a makeshift desk.  I scribbled my name and number and second guessed myself.  “What do I say?”  Like a pro, Amie recited, “Hi, this is my number, and I’d really love to hear from you sometime.”  I was impressed at her composure.  She peered around me, saying, “You’d better go quickly, they’re locking up!”  I jumped out of the car and then froze.  “He’s talking to a female coworker!” It suddenly occurred to me that he could be taken, even married.  I usually do a ring check.  Could I still do a ring check?

“Go!” Amie urged, and I strode purposefully toward the doors, nearly jogging.  As I neared the exit where he stood, Security Guy looked out at me, smiling.  “Did you forget something?”

I slunk through the door, aware that the coworker was both within hearing distance and watching us, and I dropped my voice while staring down at the folded paper in my hand.  “I don’t know if this is even applicable…but this is my number, and I’d really love to hear from you sometime, if you’re available.”  I handed over the paper and noted the bemused smile playing across his face before I turned and marched back out, calling over my shoulder, “Good night!”

The walk back to my car felt a little long and a lot self-aware.  I hate being watched, and I hate being talked about, and I’m pretty sure both were happening behind me in Targetland.  Once I reached safety, I relayed my speech to Amie, and she proudly congratulated me on my effort while I laughed at my own awkwardness.  I mean, whispering.  Averting my eyes.  Come on.  I opted for an alternate exit to the parking structure so we wouldn’t have to drive past him yet again, and we rolled out into the night with plenty of fodder for our gabfest.

“Remember when I said I wasn’t going to pursue the next one?” I said, shaking my head.  Really, I am tired of the pursuit, of being the aggressor.  I would really, really like to be the one pursued, treasured.  I have a pretty good idea of the traits I hope to find in a partner (painfully earned through getting burned by earlier, misguided notions) and I’m not currently looking to start something.  But I felt braver for having put myself through the brief exchange.  Back at home, Amie and I painted ourselves and chattered well into the night.  Her nail art was artistically impressive, a TRON-like tribute.  Mine looked like a unicorn threw up on my hands.  We were both pleased.

She stayed the night as her apartment was undergoing repairs, and it took me longer than usual to drift off to sleep.  I awoke hours later to a text from an unfamiliar number, the first line of which read: Fortune favors the bold.  It was him!  Scampering into the room where Amie was getting ready for work, I wordlessly held out my phone for her to read, and after her eyes registered the development, we both squealed in delight.  I may have jumped up and down.  Or maybe not.  Who’s to say.  (Quiet, Amie.)

So I’ve been texting back and forth with Security Guy all day, a weird kind of technological date, and a legitimate coffee date is on for tomorrow night.  I’m not actually expecting anything more than a new friend (I’m pretty serious about that whole wanting to be pursued thing), but all the same, it was nice to affirm that even if I’m whispering and averting my eyes, timid little Tisket can be bold.

8. If Only I Were Skinny

The frothy chocolate shake on the SlimFast label practically spoke aloud to me: “Hello, little lady!  Do you like milkshakes?  Try me, I’m delicious!”  I heeded its call, asking my mom for a glass.  “It won’t taste the way you think it will,” she warned, but obligingly scooped the brown diet dust into the blender.  I was eight years old, and after one sip I learned two things, in this order: I should have listened to my mom, and product labels lie.

I’m not sure when I first noticed it, or the first time I wanted to change it, but as far back as I can recall, I’ve had a rotund tum.  Little Tisket had a one-piece swimsuit, plaid with a sunflower print, that featured side cutouts to imitate a two-piece; at home, I turned sideways in the mirror, noting my tummy’s protrusion in the suit.  I was reluctant to wear it to my friend’s birthday party on the beach, and felt overexposed when I peeled off my outer clothing.  But I quickly forgot my self-consciousness in exchange for the fun to be had, as children are apt to do.

The birthday boy was named Brent, and he was the first boy to say he loved me, cupping his hands around my ear and whispering it like a secret.  He was also the first boy to kiss me, on the cheek, with our mothers looking on in bemused approval.

On occasion, I would stay the night at my grandma’s house.  We usually had Rice Krispies or Pop-Tarts in the morning, but on one occasion she opted to prepare a huge breakfast: scrambled eggs, sausage, cereal, toast, orange juice, the works.  I gobbled up the assortment hungrily, and urging me to slow down, she asked how I would explain my bulging tummy to my little boyfriend, Brent.  “I’ll tell him I’m pregnant!” I proclaimed, and Grandma laughed, rising to ring my mother and relay the punchline.

It was funny when I was six.  Twenty years later, I would cringe at strangers’ questions about the pregnancy I wasn’t actually carrying.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Learning how to clothe my body was a long process.  After wearing uniforms throughout middle school, my style became a mishmash of hand-me-downs and boy-style clothing.  I wore skate shoes, though I was not a skater (I know, I know, poseur!).  I wore extra-wide-legged pants because my cool friend Betty did.  I slowly started to incorporate cardigans and capri pants when I became interested in vintage, but continued to favor loose and boxy cuts.  It wasn’t until college that I started experimenting with form-fitting clothes, and at that point my disdain for my own body came into sharp focus.

I have a sway back, and the only way to stand up straight is to tuck my hips under, which stilts my gait, so I don’t bother altering my stance.  The natural arc of my lower back pushes my  stomach out further, and with an equally rotund bum, I look like a squiggly line in bold font.  My dance class leotards betrayed my true shape, and I began to consider how fabric interacted with my “problem area”.  I admired the clean lines created by the long, lean limbs of other dancers, and frowned at my short, thick arms and legs in the mirror.

Then I got sick.  After multiple hours of dress rehearsal for a ballroom showcase, I sank into restless sleep disrupted by completely unhinged dreams, awakening every few hours to shower away the cold sweat.  Morning brought a painfully swollen throat, and I forewent food until my roommate (Amie) offered her leftover pizza.  I agreed to the easily accessible meal, but the slice scraped down my throat like sandpaper.  I conceded that I needed to see a campus doctor, and the university health center gave me the bad news: mononucleosis.  After the student pharmacy rejected my insurance coverage, my parents drove me to an urgent care clinic, where I was given a bottle full of steroids to reopen my throat, which had nearly swollen shut.

It was the eve of spring break, and I returned to my hometown to recover.  Lacking the energy to sit upright, much less eat full meals, I was confined to my bed.  Entranced by an Eddie Palmieri album, I lay still and yearned to dance freely, or even just stand up.  During the course of a second bottle of steroids, my energy began to slowly return, and I made plans to sit in the park with an old friend.  As I dressed myself, I examined my reflection in the mirror for the first time in a week.  I hadn’t been sick for that long, but my clothes hung loosely on my frame.  My stomach lay unrecognizably flat, my cheeks narrowed.  I looked into my eyes, weary and disconnected, and realized that I was skinny, as skinny as I had spent years wishing to be.  I thought it would feel good, but it didn’t.  I thought I preferred to be thin, but I didn’t.  There wasn’t even a marginal satisfaction from my ill-gotten prize.

When I returned to finish the school term, a thin ballroom dancer from my troupe approached me in awe, her eyes scanning my body up and down as she exclaimed, “Wow, you look great!  What did you do?”  And, bluntly if not a bit reproachfully, I answered, “I got mono and couldn’t eat for a week.  I took steroids to reopen my throat.”  Over the next few days, I would need to repeat this when quizzed by others who enviously wanted to know “my secret”.  And at twenty years old, I learned that weight loss is not always a good thing.

Several months later, at the start of my senior year, I met Colin, a sweet and introspective classical composer who was also wildly imbalanced and self-destructive.  He was the first man to see my bare form.  I awoke in his bed, lithe and possessed by a sense of allure.  I actually treasure that brief bubble of naïveté, of being unafraid.  It would not last.  The relationship careened on for a year, desperately scarring us both until its implosion. At twenty-one years old, I learned that my body could damage my soul.

I graduated and settled into a small office job, where depression seeped into the sudden aloneness.  I actually considered sleeping under my desk at work so I wouldn’t have to bother driving home, because what was the point?  Directionless, I began to spend my time shopping, walking the aisles of Ross Dress for Less and hoping that someone would smile at me in acknowledgment; when it happened, it lit my heart and made my day, but when ignored, my hollowness multiplied.  I was lost, quietly crying between the racks of dresses.  My body began to change again as I stopped dancing and ate to self-medicate.  My college clothing no longer fit, and shopping took on new purpose as I searched for ways to disguise my burgeoning midsection, where I have always carried my extra weight.  Meanwhile, I initiated a brief relationship with a mild-mannered coworker to assuage the loneliness.  He accompanied me to a doctor’s appointment, where an elderly man next to us offered congratulations.  “On what?” I asked, puzzled.  “…Nothing,” he said, quickly turning away.  At twenty-two years old, I learned that empire-waisted dresses look like maternity wear.

About a year later, I began another new relationship.   Pulsating music filled the living room of an acquaintance’s house party, and I rested on an otherwise empty couch next to Andrew, who fondly placed his hand on my tummy in a gesture of affection.  Nearby, a thirty-something woman danced energetically by herself, and catching sight of us, boogied closer to yell over the music, “When are you due?”

“I’m not,” I called back, embarrassed and edging away from the hand resting atop my belly.  She nodded, still dancing to the loud electronica, and I thought we were all clear until she asked, “Boy or girl?”  Andrew didn’t mind the confusion, he liked the idea.  I felt differently.

For the next few years, I immersed myself in fashion blogs, observing the street style of regular women and compiling tips for minimizing my visually prominent stomach.  Empire-waists were out, but maybe a peplum would work.  Or a flowy tunic with leggings for proportional contrast.  50′s silhouettes.  Belting.  V-necks and statement necklaces to draw the eye upward.  I was complimented at my office job for my sartorial efforts, and I cited creative expression as a motivating force.  But my obsession with fashion was largely fueled by self-hatred and fear of losing control.  I bought into the chameleon effect: I could always look different with new clothes, even if what lay beneath was unchanged.  This was a scam, visual trickery to hide my body, which was as unhealthy as it had ever been.  When I was younger, it had been easy for me to gain and lose weight, but now I was only gaining and maintaining, waiting in vain to naturally, effortlessly shed the extra pounds.  The real me was trapped inside the wrong body, like some kind of Freaky Friday episode; at least, that’s what I thought, honestly believing it until I finally surrendered my idea of self to a larger woman.  “Plus size.”  Plus what?

To combat my growing sense of defeat, I chased sexiness.  In a dressing room mirror, I scrutinized a lace tank top that emphasized my bust and compressed my tum.  Of course I was going to buy it.  I could buy the illusion of sexiness for myself if nothing else.  Even if it was expensive.  Even if I wasn’t financially flexible.  Andrew loved me, but his attraction waned, and I was desperate for his eyes.  Deep-seated fears demanded the approval of those eyes.  He had never seen me as lithe.  He never would.

When I was twenty-six, I stopped eating regularly.  It wasn’t an aggressive campaign to punish my body; I simply didn’t care enough anymore.  I would sit, nearly catatonic, and wait for hours for Andrew’s return home.  For a time, the waiting was reasonable.  Later, the waiting was no longer within reason.  Someday I’ll tell you how I disappeared, how I was not there unless someone else filled the room with their own energy.  But that depression, and side stories of so many of the things I’ve told you today, are bubbles for another day.  I only allude to it now because it set in motion the body morph I am currently experiencing.

I didn’t notice the shift, but others began to comment on my weight loss, telling me I looked great.  “Thanks,” I said, as though I had achieved something, knowing I hadn’t.  If anyone asked about my method, I cited my switch to vegetarianism, a dietary choice I had legitimately embraced as I once again became alone.  My pastor looked at me squarely and said, “I lost thirty pounds when I got a divorce.”  I only nodded in response, but I was grateful that he understood.

When I was younger, depression tinged my vision of the world’s palette.  But I was now fighting a monster I could not overcome, and at the suggestion of a few concerned friends, I saw a psychiatrist about medication.  The pills suppressed my appetite further.  Compliments abounded, feeling like insults.  I maintained my poker face and deflected.  “Thank you.  I think it’s just the clothes.”

I began to dance again.  The overwhelm pushed through my limbs, and I found a new way to cry.  When I had cried enough, which took quite some time, I tentatively began to move through new, unnamed emotions.  My former approach to any physical activity had been to stop whenever it got hard.  I began to push through.  I held the yoga pose longer, I learned into the stretch further, I threw myself into the stunt I had never attempted.  As my strength increased, I found an affordable option for learning martial arts through my church.  It’s an interest I’ve had since middle school, but I’d never committed to a discipline.  Self-protection and the heart of a warrior – these were precisely the qualities I wanted to possess.  I enrolled in an all-ages karate class.  Wearing my gi for the first time, I checked myself in the mirror.  I saw what I felt: determination.

I am twenty-seven years old.  I still have a stubbornly rotund belly.  And I still don’t eat regularly, largely because I am poor at planning ahead, but not entirely because of that.  Between society, media, advertising, and me, there are a lot of voices telling me how I should look, applauding me when I conform to the visual understanding of health, even if that standard is misguided.  It’s an ongoing battle to remember that skinny doesn’t solve my problems or make me happy, let alone healthy.  I am learning, slowly, how to nourish myself.  I don’t want to disappear anymore.  I want to be fully here, while I can be.

7. Digital Memories Are Forever

I’ll probably dig further into the psychology and emotional impact later.  For now, all I want to say is that I just went through several years worth of digital photos and videos to trim away the excess (I’ve never been good at organization) and edit out a certain man.  Because even once you’ve presently let a person go, and you’ve wiped out the associated hopes for the future, the preservation of memories is difficult to release.  Photos and videos capture much more than a single superficial visual moment.  I may as well have jumped into a pensieve.

I deleted three years of my digital records of him, keeping a small handful in a folder marked “Let It Go”.  Someday I may be able to do that, or perhaps I’ll just relabel it and trim it down further, keeping only a few of those memories amongst photo piles of other friends who used to be more important to me, and people I’ve forgotten entirely.  I was surprised at how small the folder is, that those three years could be whittled down to a few images.  Most of the contents are from our beginning, when we smiled easily.  They remind me of a person I loved very dearly and in a terribly flawed way; they remind me that I used to be different, too.

He’s gone.  He’ll never come back.  And in that sense, neither will I.  Sometimes it feels terribly sad, always saying goodbye.  But conversely, I’ve begun to greet the world around me.  I notice small details, like fluorescent stripes on athletic sneakers walking across the mall, or how many window panels are in a door I pass through daily and have never really looked at.  I laugh at the comedy of it all.  And that’s better than the photos with easy smiles, because I am lighter and stronger than I was then.  Whoever he is now, I hope the same for him.

6. Let’s Not Talk About This

“Mom says you’re friends with Colin on Facebook now,” my Dad said, clutching a large stick in one hand like a baton.  He always carries that stick while walking his mild-mannered beagle, a precaution against all the savage, barking beasts that neighbors might let roam freely.  The beagle was trotting along with my Mum and Sis, several paces ahead of us, while Dad carried his makeshift weapon along with the poop bags.  “Yeah,” I said, drawing a quick breath before launching into a rapid-fire explanation of Why I’d Added Colin, My Ex-Boyfriend From College With Whom I Had A Significantly Turbulent Relationship Without Peaceful Closure, as a Facebook Friend.  (Short version: we split six years ago and I’m finally over it.  Long version: I’ll be telling you about it later because it’s related to quite a lot of big bubbles burst.)

To my surprise, my Dad didn’t criticize the technological olive branch I’d extended, even seemed to stop paying attention to my monologue.  Then he revealed the question behind the question.

“I just hope you won’t be getting back in touch with Andrew.”

Did I pause?  I rushed to assure him that no, no, that is definitely not going to happen, of course not.  But whatever emotion I felt was akin to a pause.  Why on earth would I want to be back in touch with Andrew?  Did my Dad think I was that pathetic, that I couldn’t maintain the distance and would relapse, pining away for some small point of contact?  That I would fall for his manipulation if he were ever to contact me again?  That I am still that small?

“I don’t give him the benefit of the doubt,” Dad explained.  I know where this is going, and I begin to tell myself, I am steel.  I cannot feel this.  It does not touch me.  I am titanium.  He continued, “I know you think… well, I’ve made up my mind about him, let’s just say that.”  I am fairly sure I know what he means, though he has never come right out and said it.  Mum has, freely.  To the point where I had to ask her to never say it again, because it simply is not true.  Andrew screwed up many things, but despite my rampant suspicions and poisonous jealousy and unbreakable insecurities, and despite his shady demeanor, ridiculous lies, and perpetual recklessness, I know that his betrayal ultimately was not about another person.  Of course there is the possibility that I am wrong.  But I am thorough – and when cheating is the incarnation of rejection I fear most, it would take an advanced skill set to have successfully executed such behavior without me knowing.  Particularly because I accused him of it so regularly, with the scrutiny of an interrogations officer.  But Mum and Dad have their reasons for their beliefs about Andrew, and I will never be able to convince them otherwise.  I once used that as ammunition against Andrew, and regrettably, it deflated him as much as I’d hoped.

“It’s just that…” Dad said, searching for the words while I continued to internally harden myself, bracing for impact.  I know they mean well, but I will break if pushed too hard.  Even now, nearly a year after it all came apart.

Dad begins again, not lecturing as I’d expected, but mournful.  “You just started smiling again, and… I’m scared.  I don’t want you to get hurt like that again.  I know how that feels…and…well, you know.”

I am not steel.  My face crumples momentarily, and my heart opens as I hear the concern underneath the worry, the compassion and perception, and the love that is helpless to protect me here.  Then I wonder why I am still so bothered when I visit my hometown, which has a million other memories before and after Andrew, and yet the association remains so strong that I cannot occupy this space without feeling perturbed.  I recall an hour earlier, when Sis dutifully steered her car down an altered route I requested – I didn’t explain, but she understood the purpose was to avoid such proximity to his house and the vortex of emotions.  Nobody in the car commented on that request, though I defensively prepped myself for commentary.  I felt ashamed at needing that level of avoidance.

I straighten out my face, the crumple unseen, and stare straight ahead as I again assure him that no, this is different.  It will always be different.  The door was closed (in my face, not by choice) and I will not (and cannot) reopen it.  I don’t tell him that I did reach out, months ago.  I don’t tell him how I compulsively wanted to befriend Andrew’s wife once she and her son moved to town.  I don’t tell him that I got shut down.  And I don’t tell him how happy I am now, how grateful and free and strong I feel, and how sometimes I’m scared, too, that I might throw all of that away if the door ever reopened.  Dad keeps his opinions to himself, and I keep these concerns to myself.  We walk alongside one another, both lost in thought.  It’s quiet, but a lot has been said.

The beagle, Mum, and Sis are all still ahead, and Dad and I begin a new conversation.  Later, I remember his words, turning them over in my mind.  And I realize – he noticed.  He noticed that I’m smiling again.

5. It’s Just A Dress

I am a Goodwill rock star.  Almost all of my favorite clothes are from thrifting expeditions.  I once procured a pair of mint Frye leather sandals for $10, a tenth of their original price, and my fuchsia pleated Marilyn Monroe halter dress rang up a paltry $7.  I’m not bragging about buying secondhand to save the planet or boycott the fashion industry or to make any kind of individualistic statement.  Those are great byproducts, to be sure.  But really, I go because I find shopping therapeutic (or perhaps self-medicating, but, bubble for another day) and I can throw down a few bucks on some threads or LPs instead of spending the equivalent of a mid-range concert ticket for the same stuff elsewhere.  Someone has already done that work for me!  People get rid of a lot of good stuff for any number of reasons.  They’re moving, they’re tired of it, they have duplicates or too little space for too many things.  It’s better, most of the time, than tossing useable items it in the trash.  (It does get complicated with the overflow of clothes that get plucked out of the sellable piles and sent to third-world countries, which feels like, “okay, well I guess that’s nice of you America” until you consider the impact it has on local clothes makers in said third-world nations, namely undermining their ability to become self-sustaining markets and deepening their dependence on “aid”, which…okay, this is a long parenthetical, you get the point.)  It’s not a perfect system, but it’s far better than the “trash everything” mentality that makes our nation so damn wasteful (I’m looking at you, system of credit, with an overtly disgruntled side-eye, while clicking through a PowerPoint presentation on trash islands).

I donate on the regular, but it’s mostly because I have a lot of crap; it’s easy to unload the crap, drive away, then ultimately fill up my home with more crap, and repeat cycle ad nauseam, reasoning it away as “recycling”.  Just a different spin on wastefulness, really.  After years of this process, my interest in minimalism has increased proportionate to the decline of two major materialistic phases.

First, clothing.  I’d spent quite a lot of time and money on figuring out what looked good on my figure (which was tricky because my figure was changing, and I also wasn’t being honest with myself about my shape), learning to not spend emotionally (never go to the mall when you feel frumpy), and slowly coming to understand my own personality (which is something you can subtly shift sartorially, unearthing such identity questions as: who am I?  For what reasons did I become that person?  Who do I want to become?  What social responsibilities must I fulfill through my clothing/uniforms?  To which audience am I playing?  And at what point am I wearing a costume?).  It was all much more complicated than simply being enamored with shoes, though that was certainly a thing, too.

My second materialistic phase centered on filling and equipping my home.  It started with furniture off of Craigslist, finding anything that was decent and workable (I’m also kind of a Craigslist rock star).  Then it was about amassing kitchen appliances.  The flatware and placemats had to reflect the interior design and the interior design had to reflect me – my personality and preferences.  Then I needed a bigger bed.  Curtains and curtain rods and the tools with which to hang them (and the materials with which to cover up my first attempt at hanging them).  Lamps, light bulbs, trashcans, a new shower head, bins and containers and racks for organization.  All of these things are useful, reasonable tools to maintain the unceasing rhythm of a first-world, middle-class lifestyle.

Both phases were necessarily a part of my passage into adulthood, a scrambling to assemble myself.  But after completing my checklists, the buying patterns continued, and my space soon bulged past capacity.  My weight went up, or down, and the clothing from either end of the spectrum was piling up in my closet, on the floor, in another closet, in my car.  I replaced some of the appliances or decorations that no longer suited me, but the old stuff sat dormant in cupboards.  Books and movies and abandoned electronics and unwanted jewelry and on and on and on, all forming small hills.  To Goodwill we go!

It took me some time to see the cycle of purging and splurging, and I’ve since scaled back on the latter while maintaining the former, trimming down my belongings to the most wanted and used items.  And yet I still feel heavy.  So much stuff, and all of it requiring time (which is common code for “life itself”) – time to clean it, time to find a place to store it, time to locate it when I forget where I’ve stored it.  Meanwhile, minimalists abound on the web, preaching the good message of living with only twenty items, or whatever number works for their given lifestyle, which is often nomadic.  It’s easier to wander when you can pick up and go at a moment’s notice.

I want to be able to go.

So I keep trimming away at the edges, upheaving the dead weight, and screening my purchases more thoroughly.  Do I need this to operate?  Is it quality-made, will it last, can I afford it?  Where will I put it?  How often will it be used?  Is there a workaround so I can bypass or delay its immediate purchase?  Do I love it?

Now, there’s a nearly alarming notion…loving objects.  Hmm.  It seems misguided, like the sort of thing a wiser person would advise against, but don’t we all form deep attachments to our stuff?  It’s a great test for consumption.  Sure, I really do need a multipurpose cocktail dress for gigs, weddings, funerals, interviews, dates.  But did I squeal with delight when I put it on?  If I’m wearing it for all of the above, I’d prefer to be pretty damned excited about it.  It’s an even greater test for the opposite – releasing the things I love.  Inanimate items infused with significant history feel like embodiments, time capsules.  Must I carry them with me?

I went to a Goodwill donation center on my lunch break.  I took in the Ikea lamp without a second thought, having picked it up in a trash heap behind my apartment complex.  It worked perfectly, but I didn’t really need it, so away it went for someone else’s usage.  The bag of clothes, however, took me an extra ten minutes to rifle through and triple check for any last minute changes of heart.  This was after the hours of considerations spent last week during my apartment comb-through.  And that was after years of holding onto those pieces through multiple purges.

This belt is from the time I performed in that dance club with the transvestite emcee, wasn’t that a crazy night?  I used to perform a lot more often.  This skirt is perfect for all the beach hangs I used to do but for which I no longer have time enough.  I work a mere ten minutes from a relatively uninhabited beach on the weekends, and it’s such a spiritual place for me.  Maybe I could go this weekend, and wear the skirt.  And this dress…he bought me this dress, when we were happier together.  Or were we?  I can’t even remember.  But he knew I liked the print, even though it was expensive.  Oh…this scarf.  I took too long at Buffalo Exchange deliberating over its purchase, then walked out in a scarf-less huff when he got pissy about having to wait (understandably, as it was something like an hour of waiting…I’m a slow decision-maker).  He secretly went back later to buy the scarf for me as a surprise and apology.  It’s an okay scarf, I guess, but I kept it through many purges because it was a symbol of someone caring for me when I was behaving selfishly.  At one point, I passed it on to Amie to release myself emotionally, then later took it back into my custody because I decided I liked the stripes again…and because I was wallowing in sadness.  Indeed, every single item of clothing I was about to give away represented a memory, a wish, a broken dream, a former me.

I kept the scarf and bagged the rest, got a receipt for next year’s tax deductions, and walked out empty-handed.  I don’t miss the stuff.  A few long since gone items still haunt my memory (that seafoam chiffon ballroom dress was so dreamy), but obviously I’m getting along fine without stretched-out shoes and books I never read.  Sure, they were great in their time with me, and the untouched items had potential, but it’s time for someone else to enjoy them now.

Separately, I rounded up my stuffed animals.  I’m handing them over to a coworker who has young nieces and nephews, hoping they might love these animals more than I have.  As I transferred them one by one from my car to his, I came to the last one in the pile: a bear from college, James Read, whose purchase had promoted child literacy.  His official name was Read Teddy, but he seemed more like a James to me.  He looked so smart in his little cardigan and orange ribbon tie.  I started to hand him over, then clutched him back to my chest in one final bear hug.  I reconsidered.  I had put this little bear together – stuffed his furry body, stitched him up, named him.  He lived in three different dorms and three more apartments after that with me.  I never paid much attention to him, and on some level I understand that he’s just a toy, but he’s a part of my history, even as a background player.  I felt a surge of love for him, for his presence throughout so many changes, all the years in which I grew up on my own.  “Maybe I could give him to my daughter,” I thought.  “If I ever have one.”  And then slowly, with incredible reluctance, I held him out to my coworker.

I won’t lie, I’m still thinking of asking for James Read to be returned (if he isn’t living with the little children yet).  But I also know that the significance of those years can’t be summed up in a teddy bear.  The flash of memories was powerful, but that’s all in my head somewhere, all in my timeline and truth.  And in the end, I want to be lighter.  So I unload, and I say goodbyes to the person I was, the person I never became, and the people I left behind.  It’s just a bear, it’s just a dress.  But for a while, they were so much more.

4. I’ll Feel Right in Your Arms (and Other Dreams)

I’ve dreamt of a lot of guys over the years.  For a longer period of time than I can either recall or care to admit, I leaned into the “meaning” of these dreams.  Blame the story arcs of Disney, or blame the bygone chastity of Protestant Christian roots, or blame whatever you like, but the monogamous idea of a soulmate permeates the minds of little girls early on.  Like an answer to our question.

For a while, I had the arbitrary, romanticized notion that I would “feel right” in the arms of the right guy for me.  My theory was tested when I met a young man at a high school acquaintance’s birthday party.  There was a natural ease when we slow danced to whatever regrettable early millenial music was blaring through the stereo.  The rest of the partygoers sat in lawn chairs at some distance, guessing at what he and I were so breezily chatting about.  Slow dancing can sometimes be too intimate – a clinging, prolonged, public embrace – or alternately, too awkward, because you sure as hell can’t stare at a person for four minutes straight without having to look away, force conversation, joke to lighten the mood, do anything to sway through the elongated tempo in a seemingly natural way.  But this guy was neither of those extremes.  He was fun, but serious enough for conversation, and a four minute dance didn’t seem long enough.  He was cute, and Jewish, and I was going through a phase where I was only interested in Jewish guys, though I, myself, am not Jewish.  But most important of all, I felt right in his arms.  When he later disappeared without a good-bye, I sprinted through the house to find him, catching up right as he was exiting through the front door.  I was breathless (from running, not elation) as I requested a way to later contact him.  There was nothing to write on or with, but we obviously had a connection and I was determined to not let it slip away.  I bolted back into the party and scrambled to find a pen so he could etch his AIM screenname onto my arm (which was not, to quote Inception, an “elegant solution”, but it would do).  Later, I would send him an instant message, giddily thinking that this was the start of something beautiful.  Imagine my surprise upon realizing that he wasn’t all that interested in a virtual stranger.  I could almost see his eyebrows arched in disbelief as I explained (yes, I did this) my belief in feeling “right” in the arms where I was meant to be, and that I felt that way with him when we danced, and how that must mean something.  After a lengthy pause (I think he had walked away from the computer), he finally responded: “It was one dance.”  Excuse me, guy, but have you not SEEN Cinderella?

I’ll go ahead and cut the tension right here – I did not go on to marry the cute, detatched Jewish guy that I danced with that one time at a high school acquaintance’s birthday party.  The IM conversation very quickly convinced me that he was a jerk, and him that I was capital c Crazy.

So perhaps that whole “feeling right in your arms” thing wasn’t going to be an accurate gauge for a soulmate.  But dreams – those seemed like messages. (I’m telling you, the mind of a romantic is an eternally optimistic place.)  I would wake up after dreaming of some guy and wonder, “Why him?  It must mean something,” even if I had no prior interest in him or recognition of his existence beyond, “oh, that guy.”  It took me a long time to figure out that dreams, while sometimes mysterious and potentially message-bearers, are mostly just the pieced-together fragments of various thoughts from earlier in the day, or some tangle the mind is working out while it has the time to do so.  But the emotional residue from my dreams would carry over into my waking hours, coloring my perception.  Only once the dream’s details faded into obscurity, or I realized that I didn’t actually feel anything for the object of my REM-cycle, or I realized that they were not, in fact, my idealized Prince Charming, was the spell finally broken.

I went through a series of ex-boyfriend dreams while I slept next to the man I expected to marry.  I figured I was saying my good-byes.  My sister noticed the resurgence of exes parading through my consciousness and communications, and suggested I was figuring out what had gone wrong in the past so I wouldn’t make the same mistakes.  Either way, and despite my discomfort at some of the ex dreams being overtly romantic, I knew I had made the decision to move forward with my partner.  Even though we didn’t feel right in each others’ arms.  I had long since let go of that silly notion.

I’ll tell you some other time about how I might have thanked my younger self if I had held onto the essence of that silly notion.  How I would later find that valuing instinct hadn’t been completely off the mark, only missing it via the wrong angle (following my feeeelings!) with an underdeveloped sense of intuition.  But that is a bubble for another day.  Today’s final feature is the latest installment in my sporadic romantic dream series.  This one brought out a different line of thinking…because of Lent.

I had fallen asleep on the couch after scrawling the first lines of my newest composition.  I’ve been in writer’s lockdown for weeks with no end in sight, delving further into my emotional landscape for subject matter.  Many of these pieces have been a release of the past – a goodbye to who I was and to the relationships from that time.  Now I am in the process of observing my yearnings, then creating the poetry and motion around them.  This song is too exposed – the admiration that bloated into attraction before firmly finding shape in deep respect and, over time, love.  I had released the first two, knowing they are unmatched and perhaps misplaced, but respect regenerates them again and again.  It really could be about anyone at any time, but I am acutely afraid that this time, my subject will recognize my meaning, and I began to think of how to deflect any suspicion, for this is far too risky a revelation to someone both professionally and personally important to me.  I faded into slumber and told him, “it’s for someone else.”  He didn’t care for the song, analyzing its predictable harmonic progression and simplistic lyrics.  Though I agreed with the assessment, the rejection from the song’s actual source material crushed me.  Disproportionately crestfallen, I angrily skipped to the next song, something I probably haven’t written yet but reminiscent of older songs from my first heartbreak.  “Emotions are fleeting,” he said as we listened, and I winced back tears with a searing pain in my chest as though I had been run through with a blade, but still nodded in agreement.  I did agree…and I didn’t.  Emotions are fleeting, but the effect a person has on another person is lasting, and the emptiness woven into my music still felt sharp.  The pain of incomplete buildings, and damage I couldn’t ever repair, and  simply, necessarily, walking away.  And the emotions I held for him – waxing and waning in alternation for nearly a decade – how could those fairly be called fleeting?  “I’ve never liked this song,” he said, frowning, but in the next instant, he was kissing me.  The most awkward, atrociously executed kiss.  Stunned, eyes wide open in disbelief, I pulled myself back.  Where did that come from?  I suddenly wondered if he disliked the breakup song because it fixated on an old love from which I had not yet fully recovered.  And where on God’s green earth did he learn how to kiss – had he never kissed a woman before?  It was terrible.  I hate to be judgey about such a thing, because there’s the whole “well maybe you have too much experience” voice in my head wagging a finger at me, equally judgey.  There was nothing, nothing about the kiss itself that I found desirable, but the intent behind it shocked me.  After all these years of perpetually denying gravitation toward him, now this bizarre reciprocation?  And with that, my arms were around him, my head against his chest as I said, “I have been waiting for you for so long.  I have been waiting for a good man.”  A good man.  Did he know how absolutely rare, how precious that goodness is?  And the feeling that swept over me was not desire, far from it.  It was relief.

And then my eyes really were open, and I was awake, though not immediately.  The relief lingered for just one more moment before I realized what had happened.  And then I spoke the words out loud to reinforce them: “it’s not real.”

A thin mist of sadness descended upon me, disappointment that what had finally been given was just as quickly taken away.  By my own damn mind.  I remembered my committment for Lent – every time I would wish for a man to make me happy, I would then turn that thought directly into a prayer: “God, I need you.”  Maybe this sounds stupid.  But it has taken me so long to realize that what I search for in people can only ever be found in the sureness of God.  The promise that won’t be broken, the love that will not fade into nothingness, the forgiveness I do not deserve.  With every relationship I entered, friendship or dating, I found myself demanding those things, frantic when they were not given.  It was unfair.  But I needed them.  And like a little girl, I wanted an answer to my question, in a form I could understand and hold.  And as an adult, I see that a good man can be a manifestation of that, but never the source.  I have a lot of daddy issues, emotionally and spiritually, so this is not a simple refocusing exercise.  It’s a recognition of the deficit.  And waking up from my jarring dream, I prayed it again, for perhaps the hundredth time this month – “God, I need you.  I need you.  Please.  Please help me to find you after this.  No, during it.  Through it.  Please.  Please.”  And I felt the echo in my heart, the deficit and the desperation.

Knowing that my respect and love for the friend in my song and dream is real, but that his arms would not bring me relief, I went back to sleep, yearning for the Arms that would.

3a. Good Christian Girls Don’t Dance On Poles

For this one to make sense, you need to know a couple of things about me.  First – I was raised in a decidedly Christian household.  Second – I am a feminist.

The pole dancing class was a lark.  When my dear friend Amethyst (who will henceforth be known as Amie, which you can mentally pronounce as “Amy”) and I met as awkward college freshmen in a Bible study group, I could not have forseen that the conservative girl in glasses and baggy mom jeans would be the one to insist, several years later, that we were going to celebrate my twenty-somethingth birthday by driving to Vegas to take a class known as “Stripper 101.”

But Amie did insist.  At 5am on a Saturday, she arrived clad in black leggings and an oversized white button-up, the very picture of a city girl, chirping a good morning while I dashed around packing a week’s worth of stuff for our two-day sojourn.  It had taken me several months to agree to take a weekend off of work, and it was well past my birthday when we sped off toward our alternative education.

The hours and highway stretched before us, a blank slate.  Eventually we found our way into the dirty desert where so many go to lose their money and inhibitions.  After dropping our bags off at the Golden Nugget, we rushed to class.  The entranceway was a triangle of space between the legs of a giant stripper statue.  It was more ridiculous than it sounds, and we took photos of each other standing in it.  Once inside, we scooped up our complimentary drinks at the bar.  Bars made me nervous – though I was well over the legal drinking age, it remained unfamiliar territory.  I clutched my Shirley Temple as clusters of giddy women in leopard-print cowboy hats whooped around us, their bachelorette parties revving into first gear.  They expertly slung their skinny stems around a pole while an official photographer snapped souvenir photos.  I glanced at the sea of rhinestone-encrusted stilettos, then down at my Airwalks skate shoes and workout sweats, the very picture of a twelve-year-old boy.  When the area cleared, I cautiously approached the pole, calculating where my hands should go.  The photographer helpfully called out instructions, and I obediently slumped with my back to the pole and hands placed gingerly above my head.  A flash later, the incriminating photographic evidence was printed inside a hot pink frame and handed to me.  I stuffed it into my purse.

Amie had quickly befriended a young woman in a plaid schoolgirl outfit who was attending the class alone, and they became absorbed in excited chatter, leaving me to nurse my soda and scan the room periodically, trying hard to look nonchalant.  I was relieved when a staff member appeared to usher the whole herd into a separate room with a mirrored wall, wood flooring, and several tall poles, their metal gleaming.  Our instructor loped in and introduced herself.  I stared in disbelief at the stereotype fulfillment before me: platinum blonde hair, implants, mile-long legs and lucite platform stilettos.  She was the real deal, a professional.  The hour was to be split into three segments: choreography for chair dancing (or, once another person occupies the chair, lap dancing), pole poses, and pole spins.  Over the years, I’ve taken a variety of dance classes: hip-hop, jazz, ballet, ballroom.  As with any of those forms, my approach to the sultry movements of pole dancing became that of determined technical focus .  Perhaps it was a coping mechanism in an absurdly sensual environment.  Let me give you a frame of reference for my state of mind: in high school, I joined show choir and immediately wondered whether I should quit because I was sure my father would angrily protest the slinky Bob Fosse choreography in one number.  In college, I thought my mother might balk at my hip-swiveling salsa solo in my ballroom troupe’s showcase.  Suffice it to say, I was sure -very sure- that this was a code 9 heart-attack level on the Appropriateness Scale.  My eyebrows knit in concentration as I analyzed the steps, angles, and timing, but I wound up a pretzel around the base of the pole.  Despite this, I earned  a plastic ID with a blank space for my “stripper name” and a fitted t-shirt emblazoned with a hot pink “Stripper 101″ logo across the chest.  “What is your stripper name going to be?” the instructor asked, Sharpie poised over my new ID card.  “Tisket,” I responded.

Deciding to keep on with the weekend’s theme of exploring our personal levels of comfort with sexuality, we later attended a performance of the adults-only Cirque show Zumanity, marveling at the incredible talent and lack of clothing.  Thinking back to that weekend, I have to give Amie credit for the push outside of my comfort zone.  It affirmed my resolve to try new things outside of my perceived character, and those experiments became a founding block of this blog.  I began to burst my own bubbles.

This particular story has just begun, however.  The story of how, one year later, I found myself swinging gracefully around a pole in front of a mixed-gender audience, performing as emotionally naked as I have ever been, is a bubble for another day.

2. I Can Pass As Bilingual

It was midnight, and I was calculating vegetarian options in a Taco Bell drive-through.  My choices were cheesy potatoes, a cheese quesadilla, and a bean burrito.  A previous attempt at a meatless taco had been only “meh”-worthy, so that was off the table.  Not that the cheese quesadilla was about to fulfill my wildest dreams, but at midnight, you can only be so choosy.

My voice was sore from singing too boisterously in the car, and I carefully spoke my order into the speaker.  A garbled voice repeated back the wrong items, so – from the diaphragm – I rearticulated my order a little louder, keeping my eye on the cheesy prize before me.  I have a relatively quiet voice, about one dynamic marking behind my intent, and raising its volume to normal social levels always startles me, like I’m calmly yelling, or as though a different person has taken hold of my voice and is wielding it in a totally unnatural way.  Once I had reached a sufficient drive-through volume, I thanked the worker and pulled forward.  (Side note: Always thank the worker.  It really bothers me when customers don’t – they’re people, not computers!)

I paused my playlist, rolled down the car window, and handed over a $5 bill to the cashier, whose arm was sticking out of the Taco Bell window.  It’s funny, being so close in proximity, but reaching out from within such separated spheres (or…bubbles…sorry, there’ll be a lot of that).  “Do you want sauce?” he asked as he whirled about in his station, sprouting eleven arms in order to pour-a-drink-press-a-button-check-the-screen-bag-the-stuff-get-the-change all at once.  I stammered a “yes”, always unsure of what I actually want, but maybe…no, yes…yes, sauce would be good, I think…(I could never do an eleven-armed job very well myself.)

A few moments later, after some tap dancing back and forth across the Taco Bell tiles, the many-armed man returned with my ill-conceived midnight snack and asked again, “Did you say you wanted sauce?”  In the beats between handing over cash and watching the variety show through the window, I had noticed a sign displaying the colorful array of sauces.  “Yes, green,” I decided.  At his puzzled look, I tried again, louder: “Verde!”

“Verde?” he verified quizzically, as though the choice was odd.  I nod, sure.  “Mucha?” he asked, and I nod again, realizing that he now thinks I speak Spanish.  I mean, Verde is what is printed on the green sauce packs.  I was just reading it directly from the cheerful sign in the window.  My accent is pretty decent after 4.5 years of Spanish classes and two trips to Peru.  But my grammar and vocabulary and anything else that would suggest I can fluently converse in another language are not.  A couple of decades of classical voice training gave me some familiarity with the rules of pronunciation in a variety of languages – I know nary a word in German, French, or Italian aside from the Grieg, Debussy, and Puccini pieces I’ve sung, but I could probably read aloud from any of those languages and fool a non-native speaker into thinking I know what’s going on.

He smiled and handed me my change first, to which I responded, “Gra–” and abruptly cut myself off.  Gracias.  Okay, why not.  Gracias, señor even.  Would I need to use Usted?  I can uphold the image.  There’s something nice about sharing a language outside of English, a feeling of belonging and community that’s hard to come by if you’re multiethnic like me.  And how many times have I daydreamed about silently understanding someone who’s running their mouth off in another language and shocking them when I unexpectedly pipe into the conversation in their language?  Occasionally, someone will approach me in Spanish, and I have to restrain my delight at the inadvertent compliment of their assumption that I understand.  That I belong.  I can maintain basic, slow conversation, but there’s a definite and quick drop-off point, made clear by the limitations of my email conversations with Peruvian friends.  The first time I went to Peru, my hosts instructed me to come back fluent.  I did come back, but not any closer to fluent than I was the first time.  More brazenly independent, though, which allowed me to get around the safest districts of Lima on my own, mistakenly believing my Spanish had improved.  Ah, overconfidence.

Taco Bell Man handed over my bag of carbs, saying something in rapid Spanish that I could not interpret.  I took hold of the bag and busied myself with placing it on the seat beside me, smiling vaguely.  He paused, then repeated whatever he had said, and – pretending like I hadn’t heard him – I waved, saying, “Thank you!”  The transition back to English (along with the avoidance and doofusy look on my face, I’m sure) washed understanding over his face (I could almost see the light bulb over his head) as he raised his hand in a wave of acknowledgment, and, disappointed in my shattered image, I drove away.  Just an English speaker…much too close to Just a White Girl – an incorrect label, a point of sensitivity, and a bubble for another day.

And so it was that I relearned two lessons.  First, I cannot fool anybody (including myself) into thinking I’m bilingual if the non-English conversation extends past pleasantries or very…verry…verrry dumbed down verbiage.  And second, equally important – cheese quesadillas at midnight do not go unpunished.  Twelve hours later, my intestines are still protesting.

And with that – this is Tisket, signing off hasta luego.  Stick to veggies, boys and girls!