Day Nine: Thanks to you, I'm me

I have trouble letting things go. Once wronged, I will hold a grudge or at least continue to obsess over the events leading up to the misunderstanding. Was I at fault, were you? Even worse, an unresolved situation will continue to haunt me as I run through scenario after scenario in my head, even going so far as to play out both sides of a possible future conversation. I am the girl all men hate because I NEED closure. I can talk a subject to death in my head before I even say the first syllable out loud. To me, it is not so much the events of life that matter most, but the interactions and the intentions behind them. I will spend hours pondering what you meant by something that to you was just an offhand remark, because I believe there are no offhand remarks. There are no words spoken simply out of anger or created more by inebriation than heartfelt emotion. If you said it, I’m betting there is at least a part of you that meant it.

I am friends, or at least friendly, with every man with whom I’ve had a relationship. Teachers or other adults who mentored me as a child are forever frozen in my mind as beloved role models. Routinely, I think about friends or people I knew in elementary school. To me these are not just people that I knew, they are parts of me. Every conversation, every interaction, every silly afternoon on the playground adds up to create the person I am today. This afternoon for instance, Amy Shirey friended me on Facebook. Amy and I lived in the same subdivision and went to school together from first grade on up. We were friends when we were younger, but drifted apart the older we got. Still, I remember little things with Amy. Like, how for a while we called each other “toothpaste” as a kind of inside joke referencing Aim toothpaste and the fact that family and friends frequently called us Aim for short.  I remember her little black and white dog, her Mom, the “if you sprinkle when you tinkle . . .” plaque in their bathroom. Amy wasn’t just another girl I knew, she was a person that I invested time and emotions into and then we just . . . stopped.

When I get sad, I often begin with whatever it is that is making me blue at that moment, but it is never a far leap to once again feel the betrayal of my first love, the failure of my first long-term relationship, the loss of a cherished friend. For me, I feel the part each character of my life story played in who I am today. Austin, Dave, Mrs. Mitchell, Dixie, Cathy, Shannon, Professor Kaufman, and even an early childhood friend like Amy.  Each of them holds a piece of me, whether they realize it or not, just as they are part of me. I feel the hurt I caused Sean, the joy and fun of Mike, carefree summer days with Monika. Can you ever really lose these people when the time spent with them helped shape the person you now are? People love to say that you can be whatever you want to be and that your behavior is a choice, but can you really, and is it that simple?

God knows I have done everything possible to drive the husband away. I’m not what you’d call easy to live with, although I will say that I am much gentler and less angsty than my younger self ever was. Even so, I have made tons of bad decisions and my frequent commentary about how I don’t believe in marriage or how I don’t like the military can’t exactly be heartwarming for him. Still, he takes it all in stride. Anger, hurt, disappointment, this man has sucked it up and come back for more. And so I ask myself why? Why does someone as intelligent, talented, respected and accomplished continue to deal with the messes I create? Because he can’t let go, because I am a part of him, because there is a whole aspect to his being that never existed before he met me and now he cannot or does not want to separate himself.

We are all just a sum total of the people, places and interactions of our life. I often find myself wondering if others remember me the way I remember them. People I haven’t thought of in years will suddenly pop into my head and I will immediately correlate it with some event or consequence for which our relationship was the catalyst. Some of this was answered for me when I became FB friends with my old flame Mike. He remembered things that even I had long forgotten. In some ways it is comforting, albeit in an ego soothing way, to know that others think or at least remember you. The impact we all have on one another is so much more significant than we give credence to, and the more heartfelt a relationship, the more influence it will have.

Friendships forged when we are children are huge for me. Schoolmates are sometimes in your life for up to 12 years. While it is rare that the kids you played with on recess are the same friends you shop for prom dresses with, they are still part of your fundamental years. Then again, maybe I’m just a little weirder than you. I don’t need to have day-to-day or even yearly contact with people to still feel very connected to them. Matt Kelley will always be close to my heart because the time I knew him was integral to the woman I became.  The same can be said for a dozen other people and the supporting cast of my life story is huge. I remember you. I even remember when I wronged you. I’m just that kind of woman.

I am a big believer in not having regrets. This philosophy is the way I try to live my life. I may screw up, but it’s me and it’s real. It would be easier to excuse away slights to others by claiming that I didn’t mean it or that I regret it, but in the end every action, every interaction, becomes a part of who I am no matter how painful the lesson might be. I love with abandon and deeply. It’s not always neat and tidy or appropriate to who I am or where I’m going in life, but I cannot deny that each decision, each action, each mistake, is a part of me and I try not to regret anything. One day when the husband tires of my shit and kicks me out, that too will become a part of my story. For now, I just hope that each decision I make is not the breaking point. I talk too much, reveal too much, drink too much, judge too much, hell, I even love too much.

I live life in excess and each and every relationship along the way helps to write my story. I may never be able to settle long enough to find true happiness, but the glimpses I’ve caught are worth it. The husband is good and true and way out of my league, but he loves me and I’m going to do everything I can to keep him from coming out of whatever stupidity coma he’s been in the last five years. The funny thing is that despite knowing that he is too good for me, I can still recall the fights, the hurt, the episodes of miscommunication, and the moments when putting his head through a wall still seem like a pretty good idea just as easily as I remember and feel all the good times, happy memories, vacations, and laughter. It’s all a part of me now. I just hope that of all the people I carry around as part of my story they also carry some part of me. So Amy, Monika, Cathy, Dixie, Mrs. Mitchell, Shari, Chad, Brent, Tina, Usha, Sean, Austin, Colleen, Nikki, Dave, Matt, Echo, Jenni, Gordon, Tim, Sherri, Prof. Kaufman, Shannon, Pauly, Mike, Evan, Steve, Janelle, Sarah, and Jeff thanks, you helped to make me who I am. I might have been a bit of a mess back then, but I’m getting better every day and as long as the husband is still with me I guess I can use that as a gauge that I haven’t totally screwed it up.