Yesterday, I pulled out one of my old journals from 1998, just to see how different my life was back then. Looking at where I used to be helps me appreciate how far I’ve come.
Ten years ago, I was living in this same house, alone. When I bought it a couple of years earlier, I had moved into it with a boyfriend named Marty with whom I’d already lived for about two years. He didn’t want me to buy the house. He said, “I don’t think you should buy a house until I am ready to buy it with you.” I asked him when he thought that would be. I thought if there was something he was waiting for, something that we could work toward together, I might be willing to put it off buying the house. He said that he didn’t know when he’d be ready, or if he’d ever be ready, but he still felt that I shouldn’t buy a house without him. Because owning a house had been a dream of mine since before I met him, and because his answer lacked any room for hope or compromise, I went ahead and bought the house in my own name. He didn’t like it, but he still moved into the new house with me.
By April 1998, he had moved out, although we were still trying to stay a couple. Over the two years following my purchase of the house, both of his sons had moved in with us, having each separately been kicked out of the Navy before completing boot camp. Marty’s children had been living with his ex-wife. As soon as they turned eighteen, she had them sign up for the Navy to get them out of the house. When each of them managed to be asked by the Navy to leave, she then gave them plane tickets to D.C. to live with their father. Marty was as unwilling to parent these nearly grown men as I was unprepared to deal with their living habits.
For a while, it was just Marty, me, and Son #1, whose living habits were poor. He didn’t clean up after himself, he was marginally employed, and had no interest in college or anything beyond country music and NASCAR. Once we ran out of bath towels and found all of them dirty and piled waist high in his closet. He left a pornographic videotape in the VCR which I discovered accidentally because I thought it was the tape I had put in to record a TV show. Ironically, I was attempting to catch the episode of “Ellen,” in which she comes out as a lesbian. When I turned on the tape, I could see two women doing something, and then I realized, “Wait a minute; this is way too explicit for broadcast TV.” Marty wanted to punish his son by keeping the tape himself, which showed how seriously he took my feelings about this offense. Once, we came home from a weekend trip, and Marty couldn’t find his toothbrush. Although I suggested that his son might have taken it, he refused to believe it until I went to the boy’s bathroom and located it hidden in a drawer in the vanity. Son #1’s explanation? He had had an overnight guest and she had forgotten her own. Marty couldn’t understand why I was so offended. I asked, “Do you think, when he was invading our private bathroom, somewhere he was told not to go, that he knew it was your toothbrush he borrowed? It could have been mine!” When Son #2 moved in several months after the first, things got worse.
Marty didn’t feel compelled to do much about their behavior. If I brought it up, he reminded me that he hadn’t wanted to buy the house, and since I was the head of the household, I would have to deal with them. Both sons were quick to figure out that if their father wasn’t willing to back me up, they could do whatever they wanted. When Son #1 ran up an expensive phone bill calling a 900 number for a psychic, Marty just paid the bill, and I put a block on outgoing 900 numbers.
That’s how the situation deteriorated to the point at which I said to Marty, “You can stay if you want to, but your kids have got to go.” I felt that whether or not they were ready to live on their own, I couldn’t have them living with me any more. I’d come home from my new job and the Library of Congress exhausted mentally from trying to succeed in an organization larger than any library I’d ever worked in before, with a unique culture, new responsibilities, and people who didn’t seem to be able to relate to me yet. At home, I was the only one willing to take on many chores that should have been split up between four ostensible adults. I felt like I was headed for a breakdown unless I reduced the stress in my life. Of the two main stressors in my life, work was the one I simply couldn’t give up. On the other hand, Marty and his kids could have done things to reduce the stress on me, but wouldn’t. The choice was obvious.
Marty found a place for all three of them to live, and moved them all out of my house. He provided them with a safe, comfortable place to live, but didn’t plan on paying for a telephone or cable TV. After only a month, the boys informed him that they’d found their own place to live, and that they were moving out. That’s how, in April 1998, Marty was living alone in his apartment and I was living alone in my house. We were still seeing each other, but our relationship was tense. Ten years ago in April, the inevitable hadn’t happened yet. Maybe I’ll write about that in August.
At the same time that I was dealing with this personal drama, I was also taking a writing workshop at the Writer’s Center. My goal was to write about the years just before and after I became disillusioned with the religion in which I was raised. I have still have notes from ten years ago, including some supportive remarks on one of my drafts from my instructor, Sara Taber. She wrote a lovely memoir of her years living in Patagonia, and I hoped that I could learn to tell my story as artfully as she told hers. But as my struggles with my personal life worsened in the months that followed April 1998, I did not have enough energy to pursue writing and also make the tough choice I needed to make about my relationship with Marty.
Even now, writing about myself for the world to see scares me. I’m going to post this message, not knowing if people will think badly of me for kicking Marty and his kids out of my house. I’ve decided that if anyone does feel that way about me, it is due to my failure as a writer to express all that was going on, both in my house and in my mind. But I won’t think it’s because I’m a bad person, or that I was wrong to do what I had to do for my sanity.
In the same way, I’m afraid if I write my memoirs, people will question my version of events or be offended by my negative opinions about organized religion. I suspect it will be harder to convince people to agree with my convictions about religion than to convince them that it was the right thing to do to break up with Marty. I doubt the lack of approval for either will change my mind. Looking back, I realize that the choices I made in the past opened up the possibility of me as I am now.
A lot has happened in ten years. After Marty and broke up for good, I was sad and depressed a lot of the time. If struggling in a bad relationship made it hard for me to write, then it was even worse afterwards. I haven’t worked as hard on my story since the break up as I did before. Once in a while I try, but I haven’t yet been able to sustain the effort. At least now, I have a better excuse: three and a half years ago, I met Bob, and we just got married in November 2007. I find it hard to summon up the energy for my career, my significant relationships, and also creative writing. Usually, it’s writing that gets the short shrift. The good news is that however much energy I think I’m putting into my relationship with Bob, I’m getting an exponentially better payoff for it than I did with past relationships. The fact that I’m writing for this blog is a sign that Bob and I are giving each other the space we need to pursue our individual artistic interests. In fact, as I write this, he’s in his studio working on a painting.
Ten years from now, who knows where I’ll be?
Bob and I went t the Takoma Park Independence Day Parade. What a wide range of participants! There were the usual politicians, public service personnel and veterans, the school kids and day care providers. There were also musicians (the steel drum players, the dc motors band, and even a Christian rock band).
There were dancers from Bolivia, the Virgin Islands, and elsewhere in the Caribbean. Their costumes were crazy with color, and the V. I. Carnival troupe was simply over the top (think Carmen Miranda on steroids). Other floats/marchers dealt with local political issues such as the upcoming referendum on having slots in Maryland. While some of the marchers made their opinions known in a straight-forward way, others used satire and hyperbole.
“Bring casinos to Takoma Park,” they said. Their float included a pickup truck decorated as a casino, with little kids playing poker looking like little gamblers. There was a gangster representing the criminal element, and also an Elvis impersonator. (Actually, having Elvis could be considered a motive FOR a casino.) There were Shriners in their fezzes, some with custom clear plastic fez protectors because rain was predicted. (Only a sprinkle or two actually came down, thank goodness.)
There was even a float for a conspiracy theory that on 9/11, the World Trade Center Buildings were actually brought down by controlled demolition. Only in Takoma Park would you find such a diverse yet entertaining group marching together. After the parade, we went to the gazebo in the center of the old town to hear Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer performing for the kids. Then, we went to the new location of HMT on Westmoreland Avenue.
On Sunday, we went downtown to the National Mall for the last day of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, to hear Marcia Ball. She plays a rocking blues boogie woogie swing kind of music. We danced to two numbers, but it was just too hot. We listened to the rest of the set from the bleachers.
We only visited a little bit of the Bhutan exhibit. It was fascinating, but we didn’t have enough time. I could only remark on what a beautiful country it was, and that it seemed that their art only used the most brilliant colors.
