Chapter 81: Monarcha

SHIT!

A light blue splat hits my jeans. I frantically wipe it away and keep moving, brushing lightener rapidly over soon to be formerly known as dark waves. I’m actually doing it! (PSA: Tempted to go blonde at home? First watch any of the million or so bleach disaster compilations on YouTube. Blonde isn’t much fun when it’s off your head and lying in the sink.) Yeah, it’s just hair color, yet this baby step feels like a leap off a cliff. NO ONE likes this idea except me, and making a small decision for myself – one as popular as New Coke, or mom jeans that compete with your bra strap for purchase of real estate on your body – feels uncomfortable, yet essential. 

 I have to start practicing my own life decisions somewhere. 

I, on my own and having consulted exactly no one about this small but renegade decision, am in a remedial pre-101 class about self-determination, AKA what I want to be when I grow up. I sit and wait, head full of blue glop waiting for the darkness to show itself out. 

I’ve been obsessively mining through books about finding yourself, and as I wait for the hair magic to happen in my latest episode of I Think I Might Be Having A Mid-Life Crisis, I listen to an audiobook about relationships. I don’t recall the title of this mostly unmemorable work, but amidst the usual Raise your standards! Don’t settle! You’ll Find Him When You Stop Looking! and a million other worn-out hole-in-the-knee cliches was one significant paragraph on its way, lying in wait and about to monkeywrench my brain. The chapters click along and suddenly, a beacon on the horizon, a realization, raw gold dropped in my lap. A fact I had missed, a thought that had never occurred to me. I back up the recording and listen again. Still there. And I rewind again. And again. A  massive puzzle piece clicks into place. 

Too bad I can’t tell you what it said. 

Kidding, kidding. Here’s what happened… 

Way back when I left the church, I knew I needed to build my own life, to be my own person. I was already doing this, so what kept going wrong? Why does the wheelbarrow keep creaking back around the corner, ready to haul me away? I just couldn’t seem to stop. I would meet someone, fall back into old habits, and give up the life I was building to focus on them. As my hand opened to reach out to them, it would invariably release the string within. The problem with the dropped string, is that it’s attached to my own golden balloon, and off it would go, haplessly sailing away with my life in tow, smaller, smaller, gone. And as anyone hankering for that lunchtime cigarette, the 5-o-clock glass of wine, a midnight bowl of ice cream, or that 2 am toke in the garage, our human habits are notoriously difficult to change. 

I had been hardwired early on to sacrifice myself for other’s desires. Throw yourself on the sword, turn the other cheek, others are more important than you, relics of my Catholic upbringing in which you were taught if someone asks you for your coat, not only should give him your coat, but your shirt as well, no questions asked and no concerns about trying to go about life naked and unprotected against the elements, unable to enter even the Stop n Go on the corner. 

Isn’t that how relationships are supposed to work? Aren’t you supposed to “cleave” together, and give yourself away to this other person? That’s even how they say it. Giving yourself to matrimony. That’s what I was doing every time I would meet someone. When I was married, I thought I simply had the wrong person. Turns out, my entire concept of how to negotiate a relationship with someone is totally folded, spindled and mutilated. This giving up of yourself and the life you have constructed, giving up your essence, simply does not work.  

I mean, even Jesus at some point had to seriously disappoint his Nazareth neighbors who had REALLY wanted HIm to build that cool entertainment center. Nope, sorry, I know my mission and calling is to save the world, you’re going to have to build your own bedroom set. 

I need to stay just as faithful to my own life’s mission, guarding it like a fortress, protecting and defending its precious calling, and not allowing any takeouts. I’m pitching my Tupperware, no more of anyone hauling pieces of me away in their flimsy plastic to-go containers.

I’ve already gone through a very necessary divorce, moved to a new city where I knew no one, built up a business in a fresh location, and done a ton of things by myself, only to have my direction inevitably derailed by my latest Flavor Of The Day whom I was just positive was my knight in shining armor. Only the armor turns out to be a rusty, bent tin can every damn time, bearing a frog who refuses to turn into a prince with every desperate slimy kiss. I’ve done great at my own life direction until Prince Charming comes and waves his wand (wand, heh heh), and magics me back into the dreaded wheelbarrow. Suddenly I’m following their life direction, not mine. Then they leave, and I’m nowhere. I already figured out I need to make my own life concrete and big enough that it doesn’t fit in someone’s wheelbarrow, but why does this particular vehicle keep showing up in the first place?

Let’s return to this audiobook that’s droning on as I bleach my hair. The author is teaching about a strong single life, which is kinda funny because he has a wonderful relationship with his wife, who turns out to be an amazingly perfect person for him. Oh, please. The book is largely about how he found himself during the years he was single before he met her, yet then he proceeds to talk wayyy too much about their annoyingly great relationship. Geddouttahea with your success story. The book is a waste of tree pulp so far, and it’s actually something he says in passing that drops the bomb on my brain. 

It was in the Q and A section at the end. Honestly, I could have missed it super easily had the additional material after the actual book not rattled on, and believe me, if I wasn’t tied up painting bleach on my head, I probably would have shut it off long before. 

But it just droned on, and wayyy in the last maybe ten percent of the recording, someone pops out of the ether to ask him a question about this apparent goddess of a wife he is sooo in love with: “so…when did you really HAVE her?” 

You know, have? When your partner knows you will adapt to their life, their idea of what looks best on you, where you should live, what they want for dinner, what kind of sandwich you should be making for them, how your life should prop up theirs? So, when did you have her?? When did you lock this shit down, knowing she would be your dearly devoted for the rest of your days? 

His answer shook me. 

“I don’t. I never will have her. She is her own fascinating person with her own direction, and I’m still in pursuit, day and night. I always will be, because in a great relationship the fascination, and the chase, never ends.”

WHAT??! 

And it suddenly all shifted into place. You don’t EVER get to the point in a healthy relationship that you’re giving up who you are for the other person. YOU stay YOU, they stay them. You may journey together, but you each have your own life created, your own vehicle. And it’s self-guided, not a damned wheelbarrow.

The wheelbarrow cranks on in the distance… I chase it down, golden hair flying free and arms pinwheeling like a crazy derelict, bearing a stick in one hand. I jam the stick between the spokes of its front wheel, and it careens wildly to the side, then loses its grip on the path. End over end it tumbles, down the steep path, and over a cliff. I don’t see it land. I no longer care. Buh-bye.

I never have to get in a wheelbarrow again. 

I have myself. I hug myself. I AM myself. 

I am creating exactly what I want to be, and I GET TO KEEP IT. 

That’s what I was missing. 

My head starts to swim, an enchanted pool swirling with glittering possibilities. Choices to be made, forks in the road, directions to run in. 

Musician. Author. Dancer. Business owner. Comedian. Fitness instructor. Passionate. Motivational. Caring. Compassionate. FUN.

All possibilities. All choices for me to make. NO ONE will fucking derail it this time. You can’t derail a rocket.

 And I started with something as basic as blonde. 

Blue paste runs in a river down the drain, carrying the darkness with it. 

Blonde Monica. HA! Love it or hate it, I simply can’t care what you think. It’s what I chose for myself. 

Very basic decision #1 made, all mine. I own the decision, I own any consequence. My hair is, gratefully, still on my head. 

IN the midst of my reverie, I receive  an extremely angry text message.  

And at last, I have the answer to a mystery I’ve been trying to solve for a very long time.