A Kick-Ass Week

One of my top five Christmas songs happens to be on the all-Christmas radio station right now, "Merry Christmas, Darling." God bless your soul, Karen Carpenter -- and thanks for all the best karaoke songs an alto can sing.

What a week I've had. It was an ASS-KICKIN' week... where many of my friends (Heidi, Catheryn, Randi) kicked ass in their writing class perfomances Sunday afternoon, in her (Lynn) annual Chrismas choir concert Sunday night. Monday night was a kick-ass esoteric astrology lecture (Phillip), Tuesday was another great bunch of readings. Wednesday I'd worked for the third day with a client (Anita), and when she left at 9pm, I was ready to collapse. Answer email? What's that.

Thursday night I went to see Wagner's Parsifal starring Placido Domingo at the L.A. opera with Uranian and friends... 4 and a half HOURS on our proverbial German Romantic Opera behinds.

Afterwards, we went to a Little Tokyo diner/dive and there was a traumatic sighting of a famous Asian actress I was once introduced to when I was an "up and coming, award-winning playwright who writes terrific parts for Asian women." Of course, actor love playwrights "(Write a part for me?" and she was quite nice to me. Tonight she didn't recognize/acknowledge me so I didn't bother to remind her... and it made me so sick to my stomach I spilled my miso/tofu soup on the table, almost getting Uranian (but he was very quick to dodge).

I was a mess the rest of the night, just one big open sore -- I was a has-been, or rather a never-been. So what did I do while I stared at the walls? I teased Uranian TWICE that we shouldn't hang out with him anymore because when he goes back Europe in the summer, it will be too painful to see him go, so we better just avoid him altogether so we don't get attached. Smart, huh. Nice.

The second time I told him in front of our other friend as we were walking towards the cars. Big haha, right?! Well, the evil/asshole Uranian my classmates told me about came out with a vengeance. It was all over his face as he lashed out:

"Well, I DONT NEED YOU to hang around with anyway!"

Pain.

"Oh my god. I've hurt your feelings. Uranian, I'm so sorry!"

I was so lucky that defensive guy quickly disappeared.

"I'm so so sorry," I said again. "I just realized how much I was going to miss you and I was PROTECTING MYSELF from feeling really bad by teasing you instead."

"It's okay."

We walked a few more minutes and when we got to my car, he gave a me huge bear hug. In a semi-private voice he said, "It's going to be painful anyway when I leave... so while I'm here we might as well enjoy the pain!"

We both chuckled and hug a little harder.

When I got on the freeway, the tears just eked themselves out, amidst all my self-criticism and beating myself up with terrible self-talk: "What the fuck are you doing? Why couldn't you be more emotionally authentic? Why did you pull the teasing crap like that? Why did you hurt his feelings like that, enough to make him so defensive and protective? Why couldn't you be real?!"

Ick. I wasn't nice to myself at all. And I knew I had to send him note right away. But none of the words I typed in the email "captured" the awfulness I felt, so I called and caught him in the car.

"Hello, Madley."

"Uranian, do you have a minute?" (sob sob sob)

"Yes, of course."

I babbled. "One more time, I'm sorry I couldn't say what I was feeling...because what I realy got in touch with was that exactly how much I was going to miss you! I'm so enjoying spending time with you and getting to know you, a man who's willing to grow and work on his own stuff, who's musical, who's grounded... and now you're going to go... and I've had some important people leave me before and I could barely stand the pain of it...so to go through it again, I was just protecting myself and was mean to you instead."

"Oh, Madley, you know I'm going to be calling you from there all time! It only costs 5 cents a minute -- the same as if you had a friend in Omaha. And forget it, I'll be emailing all the time.

"But it'll be different. And I'm sorry that I saw that 'bad guy' that everyone talks about who got sharp with me. I've never met him before and it was scary."

"Yes, when sometimes old habits are hard to break... I felt myself get defensive and attacked."

We talked about how we show our defensiveness... and how important it is to have people around you to call you on your stuff, especially when you're "not taking cave time, and you tell them inspite of themselves, they have to be alone and take care of themselves, I need that."

"I understand."

"And that's why I'm bit afraid to go. I need you guys... I can really be myself and honest around you guys where I find it difficult with other people."

Uh-oh. He's going in to "group speak" and it's not just me...

"I don't know if I can survive without the support I have here...so I need you all."

Oh god. Insert sword...

"And someday, when I meet The Love of My Life, I want to be just myself and honest all the time."

...and twist.

It's not me. It's never going to just me, separate from our friends in this healing community. NOT LIKE "THAT" anyway.

So what do I do? Madley goes inauthentic and defensive again. "Yes, same here, Uranian," I barrel through. "I hope to meet The Love of MY Life and hope he can be as forthcoming and authentic as you."

CROCK OF SHIT. All I could feel was let down: once again, it wasn't "me," as in Let it be Me. Fuck. So let's just be supportive again and let this go.

We talked maybe another 20 minutes while he sat in his garage carport/driveway. We laughed, I wasn't in a shitty mood anymore, and felt completely heard. So I'm grateful for that.

But... why another good man "passing through." Oh well. Can I just say that that's for shit? I didn't feel like being authentic anymore. FUCK IT.