Dark Days: Bright Spots

I haven't written here in a year, which surprises me.  I suppose I've turned inward as my focus has returned to my family and my daily life. My last post here was about losing my best friend. But I'm happy to report that I've since regained him. Last August John put down his foot and his vodka bottle and sobered up.  It was a tremendously brave and difficult thing to do:  more difficult than I can really imagine. He's been sober for more than a year, now.  Last fall he tiptoed back into my life and we orbited each other gently through the turn of the year, waiting to see what would happen.

Having been out "on the market" in the dating world, I had gained some perspective. I'm old enough now to recognize my own patterns and weaknesses where relationships are concerned. The upshot:  I can't be trusted with myself. I try to make every shoe fit. I fool myself into believing things are what they aren't. I want to BELIEVE. What I should have been doing all these years, instead of trying to make every relationship work, was to shut up and pay attention when it told me that it wouldn't work, and to bow out gracefully.

Love is so much more about comfort and trust than it is about passion or even "compatibility." To be "compatible" implies shared interests, tastes, histories. But comfort doesn't give a rat's ass about all of that. Comfort means you've found a nest that fits your shape. Comfort is the ability to be exactly who you are and know that whether or not that is the same as your beloved, it is accepted and cherished. It's a feeling of home.

In the spring, Grayson and I invited John to live with us, and we are gradually settling in together. This is a huge move, as I swore several years ago I would never bring someone into our home. But it felt right. I've found that comfort with John. And I have also found something I didn't know I was missing so much:  a feeling of family. For the first time in 8 years, my home includes two adults and a kid: a nice stable tripod of daily living that doesn't put too much weight on any one part. It changes the dynamic, loosening the symbiosis between me and Grayson a bit... just when he really needs it, I'm sure. At 16 he needs to turn his attention toward his friends and the discovery and development of his tribe.

For years he was all I had, my everything. I felt like it was Grayson and me, back to back, standing together in the face of a difficult world. Perhaps that wasn't the most healthy way for a boy to grow up, I don't know. I'm sure I did a lot of things wrong because I was angry and sad and damaged. But whatever missteps I took, my boy can never say that he wasn't loved. He was obliged to deal with some adult realities that I wish he hadn't been part of. But it was what it was what it was, and thought I didn't make the best choices every time where he was concerned... I did the best I could at the time.

So:  family. It's a good place to be.

This gives me hope in the face of last night's election and the somewhat grim future we face. Perhaps we were all wrong, and Donald Trump won't turn out to be the incompetent, bloated gasbag of self promotion and bigotry he gives all indication of being. Or perhaps he'll drive the country right into the ground. But I have a loving family to come home to... Grayson has a posse of friends and a school he likes, John and I are healthy and employed. None of that has changed.  So we keep on in the face of uncertainty and disappointment and doubt with some scrap of hope to light the way.

And there's more good news. Next week I will close on the purchase of our house. We've lived there for five years. This is my third attempt at buying, and home prices have gone up by about $10,000 since the last time, but this time I think it's going to go through and I'll be a home-owner again. For some reason this has been immensely important to me. I've felt so temporary as a renter, unable to make changes or improvements because the house wasn't MINE. Grayson held off on hanging posters in his room for the first couple of years, because he had also come to expect "home" to be temporary.  Now at last we can pull up carpet, paint walls, dig gardens, and sink our roots into this little house and little square of land because it belongs to US.

The fifteenth is the tentative closing date. Wish me luck.

In Which I Perform a Daring Water Rescue

My sweet old dog Flower nearly drowned on Sunday. But I heroically rescued her!

I took Roxy and Flower to Sugar Creek, one of our favorite places.  The water is up (as it is everywhere in NW Arkansas), and the creek was running fast. Flower was paddling about in the shallows, and I was upstream throwing a stick for Rox when I man nearby hollered to get my attention.

"Your dog is in trouble!"

Flower had gotten swept off her feet and into a deep channel, where she fetched up in a V of two fallen trees. She couldn't hold herself up on the logs, and she couldn't get past them to shore. Her head kept going under.

I made my way upstream as quickly as I could, set my illegal glass beer bottle down gently, and plowed into the freezing creek. It's spring fed, and was numbingly cold. I got to the log in shoulder-high water and grabbed Flower by her scruff, hauling her front legs up on the tree trunk between us.  The water was rushing by and there was no space between the tree and the surface. My only choice was to lift her over the log. There was no getting her under.  She weighs 90 pounds, easy, and that's dry.  I reached over and grabbed a hunk of skin and hair on her back and hauled. She scrabbled with her front feet, clawing my stomach and shoulders. I didn't think I could lift her, but I managed it.  She sat perched with all four feet on the log like a big, wet, hairy bird, and we both hung there and rested for a minute before I pulled her over to the other side of the log and gave her a shove toward shore.

I was surprised at how shocking the cold water was, and how quickly Flower had gotten into danger while I wasn't looking.  I couldn't decide if I felt more like a hero for saving her or more like a lousy mom for letting her get into trouble in the first place. I was shaking all over, and I kept thanking the people who had seen her and gotten my attention.

Flower at home last summer. 

Flower herself took it in stride, shook the water from her fur, and strolled off to sniff around an abandoned picnic site on the shore, where she promptly found and devoured half a hamburger, unfazed.

Lately my old girl has been moving a lot slower than before, and she gets a bit distracted or fuzzy-headed sometimes. At the park, she wanders off the trail and has to be called back; or she gets in between the sofa and coffee table and gets confused about how to get out. Lately she takes much, much slower walks than ever before, and she tires much earlier. I'm afraid she may not be able to go with us on river trips for much longer, or we'll have to make our trips much much shorter to keep from wearing her out. She's still sharp and feeling healthy. But I hate seeing these signs of her aging, and I dread any further decline. She's been with us since Grayson was two or maybe three. At least 11 years.

The art of losing...

Sugar Creek, or as John and I used to refer to it, "the river spot," was a regular hang-out spot for us in the summers. We'd bring the dogs and a cooler and chairs and hang out on a sandbar, or wade upstream to see what was there to be seen. Because of that association, there was a sadness to my visit on Sunday, but I knew I needed to get back there soon and reclaim it for my own.  I went there with the dogs before I met John. I thought of it as my place then, but it came to be our place.

I missed him, and wanted to tell him my story about saving Flower.  But he doesn't want to hear from me. Ever again, apparently. At first I tried to shut that feeling out. But I realized it's as legitimate to mourn the loss of him as a friend as it would have been if we were still romantically involved. So I let myself be a bit sad about it, and let myself remember things fondly.  Just for a bit. Then, of course, I had to save my dog from drowning.

Independence Day

Yes, I know technically Independence Day was yesterday. But I've declared mine for today.

I hereby hold these truths to be self evident:
That I am fundamentally a good person with no more than the average flaws and failures.
That I have a proven capacity to love and be loved.
That I have, therefore, an inalienable right to be treated with respect, kindness, and compassion. I have a right to choose my company, my friends, and my lovers, and if, at any time, those friends or lovers should become onerous or harmful to me, I have a right to disassociate from them, with or without explanation. I have a right to speak the truth and a right to decide for myself if that truth should be spoken, and to whom. I have a right to be free from abuse, either physical, mental, or emotional. And as in the Wiccan creed:  If I harm none, I have a right to do what I will.

Signed this the fifth day of July, two thousand and fifteen:
Linda McConnell DeBerry

Or in other words:  Fuck this shit, I'm out.

I sent John one last pleading, self-abasing message, apologizing again, asking for an explanation again, Receiving more "fuck you" messages. This time it's because I sent a message to his friend Clayton a few days ago, telling him about John wigging out and asking him to take care of him. It was a strange message to send, now that I think about it. I don't know why I did it. I'm often not very smart about my Facebook usage.  Probably I'd been drinking.  Sigh. When will I learn???

Anyway, the message I got from John was unequivocal and nasty and made me cry and doubt my humanity.  But I talked to my mom (thank god for my mom) and she said "Drop. him. He's not your friend."  And you know what? ... He's not. I may have hurt him by breaking up. It may have been hard for him to stay  my friend afterward. But I never abused him. I never called him names, and I never did anything deliberately to hurt him, even when I was sorely provoked, as yesterday, when there were a whole slew of harsh realities I did NOT lay down for him. And yet he has done all of that in spades in just this last couple of weeks. Like it was his fucking job.  So I sent one last message telling him I would officially disappear from his life, his family's life, and anyone he ever might remotely know. And I blocked his number, defriended anyone who might know him, erased him from my contact list, and blocked him on Facebook. I was thorough. So that's that.

Today I am free of mean "friends," and I get on with my life and don't waste any more time thinking about it.

It's Independence Day.
Long may I fucking wave.