War...what is it good for?

Absolutely nothing.



You know...I've been angry. So angry. But anger stops me focusing on what's really important.

My ever-sensible and sensitive partner pointed out that while anger is a perfectly legitimate emotion to feel, that when it leads to destructive action, its probably time to take a step back. A grown up time-out. Think about whether the action that anger led me to was wise. Will it result in enhanced relationships? Will it help us all move forward?

So, as much as one can on the internet, I take it back.

Raging and pushing against the waves just wears you out.

Sometimes its best to just float along with the current. Maybe it will take you to the shore.

Perfection.

In the soft light the clock ticks rapidly.

Ticktickticktick.

Reality television burbles about the super yachts of the super rich in Monaco.

She is tucked into the corner of the couch, a mending shoulder propped with pillows. I slouch with my book and she drapes her legs over my lap.  The weight of connection is comforting.

"I wonder if any of these writers are still alive?" I remark , running my eye over the last page of a book of short stories. I purchased it for four dollars at the second-hand bookstore and coffee shop that we visited on two days ago. It was published in 1977.

"Bub Bridger. I know that name."

She sends me a link to one of Bub Bridger's poems via Facebook Messenger. I tap it open on my phone. Its short. Sharp. Clever. Deep.

I hand over the musty paperback open at the page with Bub Bridger's story The Girl in the River on it.

"Its good. You'll like it."

She holds the book up to catch the light from the old standard lamp and speedily consumes the story.

She nods and raises her eyebrows in agreement.

We both pick up our phones and scroll through Facebook.

Happily Ever After

I have pondered before how it can be that I didn't realise I am a lesbian; how I ended up married to a man for seventeen years, and discussed the the social norms about how I ended up there.

Every so often I read things that seem to describe my experience with such clarity that I wonder why it was so hard to describe before.

This piece on the website Brainpickings so perfectly describes the strength of social norming, and even how I managed to end up somehow book ended into a very old fashioned concept of love.

Women’s social inferiority could thus be traded for men’s absolute devotion in love, which in turn served as the very site of display and exercise of their masculinity, prowess, and honor. More: women’s dispossession of economic and political rights was accompanied (and presumably compensated) by the reassurance that in love they were not only protected by men but also superior to them. It is therefore unsurprising that love has been historically so powerfully seductive to women; it promised them the moral status and dignity they were otherwise denied in society and it glorified their social fate: taking care of and loving others, as mothers, wives, and lovers. Thus, historically, love was highly seductive precisely because it concealed as it beautified the deep inequalities at the heart of gender relationship

Articles like this have my yelling at my computer 'This! This! This!' When you look at the historical and social history of love and marriage, it makes perfect sense how strongly socialised we are into the institution. I loved the idea of 'being protected and looked after' and constantly had externally reinforced the virtue in my role as a wife and mother. Interestingly enough, not by my husband himself, who now in his role of angry ex has reverted to completely denying the work I did in that role.

But this wasn't all I read today. There was also an article from Huffington Post about 'late life lesbians,' which tells a similar story about gender roles. 

“Sometimes people don’t understand how I could have been married for ‘so long’ without realizing that I was a lesbian. They often underestimate the power of cultural ‘norming.’ Cultural expectations can’t make someone straight (or gay or anything else) but they have enormous power in directing how people live their lives. I grew up in a fairly traditional (though politically liberal) family with clearly defined gender roles. What I learned from my family and from the larger culture (this was in the ‘60s and ‘70s) was that I was expected to marry a man when I grew up.”

What can be troubling is the idea that your prior life was a lie. This seems to come from people who don't understand that people change, identity evolves, and knowing more about the world broadens your idea about how you might live your life. Fortunately, I have not experienced that by most people who know me, but it does hurt me that my ex husband thinks that everything prior to my departure was an exercise in deception. He has forgotten that while I might not have been able to be truly vulnerable with him, I was always upfront about my actions. I am generally not prone to deception. When I revealed that I had kissed one of my female friends, his only reaction was that he was sorry he'd missed it.

“My past was not a sham. I truly lived my former life as a straight dedicated wife, mother, and friend. All I knew was that at age 40, something was missing. Many of us struggle for years and years and many maintain the relationship with their husband yet still seek a relationship with a woman. I’m sorry for the pain I caused my husband. I thought I could maintain a dual life but it simply wasn’t possible.”

And on sexuality? Its a vexed question. I still struggle with it. I tend to eschew labelling, because there are too many influences on how I lived my life and how I live it now for me to truly know. When I left, the question 'So are you bisexual now?' was spat at me. Which is the only obvious answer, seeing as how I'd had a bob each way, right?

 “Being with someone (sexually) of the opposite sex does not make that person heterosexual. It is all about desire and attraction, not simply the act itself.

Seeing as how I've had a go playing for both teams, you'd think I'd be able to make up my mind. Well, no, not really. Do I have to make up my mind? Its kind of irrelevant isn't it?

I was there then. I'm here now. That's all that matters.

The circle of loss (and learning)

I first met Nyah's Mum, Mrs P, in early 2014 when I went with Nyah to visit her at her rest home.

I had heard about her long before that, of course. Nyah's outpouring of stories revealed much about this woman's past. But I had no idea what the future would hold for the two of us.

I was Nyah's 'friend,' introduced anew at every visit.

"Do you remember my friend...?"
"Of course I do..!"

Usually that was on a Sunday when my children were with their father. We bought flowers from the market across the road from our house and included them in our weekly photo of our market produce. Nyah paid attention to their colour and scent, trying to find flowers that could be enjoyed by a woman with failing eyesight.

In September that year Mrs P needed to be moved into more specialist care due to her dementia. Myself and Nyah's son in law loaded up my car and his and moved her belongings three suburbs over.

Some days Nyah struggled with the person that the dementia had turned her mother into. She researched and talked to people about how to manage this for herself. Her mother's aggression. Paranoia. Despair. Some days I saw this when I visited with Nyah, and saw how this became so circular. I saw the skills that Nyah learned to help both her and her mother manage these distressing moments.

But at other times Mrs P engaged us with her sharp wit and brilliant sense of humour. Dementia had taken many things, but this showed through.

In December 2015 Nyah went on a week long trip for work and I said I'd stop by and visit her Mum. My first solo visit. And it was great. I, too, had learned how to chatter to her and we talked about the trees outside, the weather, where Nyah was.

"She's in Holland!"
"NO..!?"

There was some despair as Mrs P didn't believe Nyah would be back to visit. But then we got talking about cats, and she asserted quite convincingly that she had brought her cat out from England when she emigrated. I asked her how, and with deep earnestness, but a twinkle in her eye, she said "In my suitcase."

We both laughed the kind of laugh where you can throw your head back and revel in the moment.

That's when I knew we were friends. But only for that moment.

And the moments where I trimmed the flowers while Nyah and her Mum talked.

The moments where her and I would 'gang up' on Nyah in a conversation that was supposed to be too sophisticated for a dementia patient.

In the moment I brought my children to meet her for the first time.

"Haven't you grown!"

"She's a nice lady," said my daughter.

In the moment I sat and jiggled her hand to stop an apnoea episode in the emergency department of the hospital after she'd broken her arm.

In the moment she confused me with a female relative on account of my shape and stature.

In the moment I pinned up and rearranged paintings and photos in the room of the private hospital room that was to be her home for less than a week.

In the moment when I chatted to her, wiped her face and held her hand in her morphine haze.

In the moment I had the privilege of accompanying her daughter to say what would be her final goodbye.

I blew a kiss to my friend as we left. I'd never done that before.

Life is a knitting together of moments, but for dementia patients, every moment is the only one.

That is my loss. The loss of moments of laughter and joy.

But I've learned.

I've learned about love.
Devoted love.
A daughter's love as roles become reversed.

And I've learned how to be in the moment.
 Look at the trees.
Watch the people going past.
Make someone laugh
.

And hold onto that smile you see.

It may be the only moment you have. 

What is love? Baby, don't hurt me...

But I do hurt her, sometimes.

I want no other, no other lover
This is our life, our time
We are together I need you forever
Haddaway - 1993

And that's what it comes down to.

Kate Love wrote for Elephant Journal

Great love is born from challenges and the ability to overcome them.

It’s walking through darkness with the faith that there will be light on the other side. It’s the math problem that just can’t be solved. It’s everything we never knew we wanted and needed. It’s not knowing how the story will turn out, but being happy to even be a part of it.

Predictability can be comfortable, but it can stunt your growth.

Discomfort is ...well...uncomfortable..but if you keep talking and keep touching it can be worked through, and you become a better person on the other side.

Love with my soulmate takes me to soaring highs where words are not enough to describe how I feel or tell her how much I love her or how happy I am.

And that deep connection keeps us tethered to safe ground when times are tough. She is my best friend and knows me better than anyone else. I am safe and I know I can tell her anything. Difficult conversations are still difficult, but they have no fear or shame attached to them, so we are able to communicate effectively.

As middle aged adults, and particularly as women (who statistically bear the weight of these duties) our lives are full of all kinds of tensions and stressors.

Caring for young children.
Caring for adult children.
Caring for an elderly parent.
Finding fulfilling work in a market flooded with bright young things and low wages in a city with high living costs.
Living with a chronic pain situation.

The words here, too, are inadequate to describe the emotional energy invested and depleted in doing all these things.

Sometimes I hurt her.
Sometimes she...we...just hurt.

"Am I worth it?" she said on particularly difficult day when things with my family threatened to wear us down.
I said "Yes, you are worth it. Because I am worth it."

Someone who loves all of me in every way. Someone who respects me. Someone who knows that we have to work at this. Someone who is happy to observe and help in my own growth. Someone who loves my brain.

I am worth it.  This is worth fighting for.

Because we have in a sense stepped off 'the escalator' we don't take anything for granted.

Our life together continues to evolve,  and being the overthinkers that we are, we continually assess and talk about where we are at.

Happily ever after at the top of the escalator is a myth we keep being sold.  It's flowers and chocolate and jewellery and trips to secluded beaches and domestic fucking bliss.

I don't want happily ever after.

I just want ever after.

Even with the knocks and bumps and tears.

Ever after with her.

Home

After writing about forging ahead with my own identity, I am sitting down to write about a merging of lives. Sort of, anyway.

As a society, we have ways of doing things that have been carved into our way of living by generations before us doing it. So, we are supposed to have some wild university life, meet a partner, get married, buy a shoddy first home, have a baby, move onto nicer second home, send kids out into the world, and retire to Mangawhai.

Even at the beginning, I didn't quite manage to follow the script. Well, I started to. Right up to 'buy a shoddy first home.' Then it all kind of collapsed, and that part of the script was scrawled out.

Now I've thrown the script out, I can focus on what matters to me and not what matters according to the rule books. I know that in the 21st century, the 'rules' are somewhat looser, but I think their foundations are still there.

I can focus on how I feel, not what tick box I can fill next.

Two years ago, Nyah's and my first home was a caravan. It was precious and difficult time. I started working through a very difficult transition away from my family home. There were tears and guilt and food and love and it was our haven. We created routines and found we fitted very well together in a small space.

It was the strange combination of the depths of despair while I navigated massive change along with the relief of being freed from my old life and the bliss of being in love.

Of great urgency was finding a home that the children could come and live in some of the time. I was a student and Nyah was running a small business. Everything was expensive. And grotty. And in the end, we found an inexpensive and grotty flat a suburb away from the children's school.

We met the doddery landlord to sign up. The lease was in Nyah's name. "Are you sisters or flatmates?" asked the doddery landlord's wife. We looked at each other and said "Flatmates."

We hoped upon hope that this would work...but we couldn't really to say it to the world.

We combined our furniture and knick-knacks and stories and made a home. The children came and made it their home, too. I have stashed away the little door labels that my daughter made with our names on them. One for everyone. They are part of our story. My littlest son drew a picture of the house complete with its rainbow sticker on the door and the purple drapes. When we moved in Nyah and I staged an apple crumble competition with the children as judges. I won. We did this on the one year anniversary of the great 'Crumble Off' and Nyah's crumble was declared just as good. We adopted Molly the cat who shuns the adults when the children are here. We walk across the road to the Sunday market, where the children have gone from sheer terror at the pressing throngs of people, to confident in navigating it without adults in order to spend their $2 'market money' on homemade biscuits from the stall under the big tree, and the cheapest softdrink they can find.

We've had our share of problems, too. The doddery landlord is also cheap and unethical. The children sometimes struggle with having two homes, with figuring out where Nyah fits in their lives, with not having space to hang their clothes up in their tiny rooms.

Now its time to move on, and we have found a new house. Its a house this time. It stands alone on a full section and it faces a lovely park. Nyah found it on Facebook and we went to meet the landlord. She introduced me as her partner. I filled out the Bond form with my name on it. We put photos of it on Facebook announcing we were moving, and received 89 likes and positive comments about how much we deserve to be happy.

Two years ago we slunk into our grotty flat, our lives and others' turned upside down, unsure of how this would all turn out. We made a life and made a home built on love and faith and lots of hard work.

I am sure my feelings about our humble, new little house must be like those of a young couple who's first declaration to the world about the earnestness of their relationship is to buy a grotty flat. I feel like after two years we can celebrate our new life. We welcome people to celebrate with us, but it seems they don't need an invitation because they have been with us all along.

Our new life has begun. It is filled with love and it is good.

40

My beloved is on the other side of the world, and yesterday I didn't manage that very well.

Every bit of relationship advice (especially for lesbians!) warns against living in each other's pockets. It says you have to have your own identities, your own interests, your own friends.

I shouldn't be so 'attached.'

I shouldn't be so 'dependent.'

I was on the verge of tears most of the day, but I had to let it happen, and examine why I felt this way.

Was it just because I was missing her? Or was it more about being alone shining light on my own insecurities and it was very, very uncomfortable?

So I worked through it.

Early on in our relationship, when it was still secret, there were a couple of times that she went off on holidays with her then partner, and the unease was palpable. It was a part of what pushed us to leave and be together. "Comfortable with you, uncomfortable without you" was how we described it.

So while Nyah is overseas working, learning, experiencing all sorts of wonderful things, I am still here doing the day to day stuff. I don't feel jealous. Not at all. I think what I feel is that she has stepped out of my world for a while, and I feel a bit lost at sea.

Nyah is a strong personality. She has a clear identity and is so very sure of who she is. And what she is doing on the other side of the world is no more than she deserves after years of hard work, and fits with her skills and aptitudes. And its food on our table. Another tension in my mind after pushing against all the patriarchal norms of being 'looked after.' I vehemently want to be an equal partner in the financial management of our household, but simply do not have the means to be.

I realised that my discomfort while she is absent isn't to do with her absence. Its to do with feeling despondent about being 40 and cobbling together three part time jobs to make enough money to pay the rent and not much else. I read just tonight that how I'm feeling at this time in my life is a symptom of Imposter Syndrome.

How many of you feel discouraged when surrounded by people with incredible accomplishments, not jealous or envious, but sad that you haven’t done much with your life? 

I read this and thought YES! YES! This is it exactly!!

I have friends who will point out the time I have spent with my children is a lot to have done with my life. And they'd be right. But as I talked about in another post, the investment, particularly the emotional investment, in spending time with small children and not being in the paid workforce, is desirable, noble, well meant. But in our world - a consumerist, capitalist society - its at odd with a society that values money making productivity over all else.

Love doesn't put food on the table.

I sit alongside children struggling with learning every day. I get paid close to minimum wage to do it. I have to tag two other jobs onto that time, because nobody gets paid to work with at risk children for longer than 16 hours a week. Its an 'honourable' job. I look into the eyes of children who's parents are disenfranchised, disengaged, disinterested, desperate, and tell them I believe in them. I love their stories. I find them something to eat when there's nothing in their cupboards. I hope with desperate hope that forming a relationship with the boy who has already pushed two of his classmates by 9:30 in the morning will be something he can carry into what seems to be a hopeless future.

Nobody gets paid much to hope, though. 

Nobody wants to pay anyone to relate to anyone else unless there's money to be made.

Nyah's training and extensive experience has given her a mixture of using the right skills, tools, and most importantly, her humanity to be able to make a difference.. It might be that she has to do that under the umbrella of a corporate overlord, but that fact remains that she knows how, and she can.

So yes...I miss Nyah dreadfully. I go through our bedtime routine of turning off the light and rolling over and the nothingness makes my heart drop. But she will be home soon, fired up with all the learning she has done and thinking about how to make that work for everyone she talks to for her job.

I want that for me, too. I want to be able to afford to house and feed my children without help. I want an identity that is outside being someone's Mum or partner or wife. And I want it to be somewhere and in something that helps others. Helps the disenfranchised, disengaged, disinterested and desperate. Maybe it has to be making money for someone else. But if I can bring hope and courage to one person, then its worth it.

All that relationship advice about not being joined at the hip is about independence. Well, whatever. I am proud to be in a relationship with someone who is constantly thinking about people's stories, people's relationships, and how they bring out the best in people.

If Nyah can work her way to a place where those things matter, and those things pay a decent wage, then so can I!

My values are firm but the next step is to make a living from them.

This is my year.