god-lights at the end of very dark tunnels.

this blog entry will be brought to you by all lower case letters. i am in a lower case typing mood currently. sorry, capital letter lovers.

::dark tunnel::

i'm trying very hard lately not to dislike or distrust police officers, because i think teachers, firefighters, and police officers all have really, really hard jobs, and none of us are paid what we're worth to have to deal with what we deal with. but the more police officers i run into lately and the more i have close, personal experiences with, the less respect i find i am able to have for them. i strongly feel there's some kind of psychological, mental thing that happens when one throws on a uniform, various symbols of authority and power, and slaps a gun onto a belt. there should be psychological evaluations beforehand. if obama is elected president, i will write to him and suggest this become one of his first acts as president: No Cop Left Behind.

i am, you understand, not singling out all police officers...just 98% of the ones i've dealt with recently who've been arrogant and rude. in situations that did not require this. and i'm a caucasian...i can only imagine what the non-caucasians get.

::light at the end::

but before all that happened, i spent the entire afternoon yesterday chatting and visiting with my friend val at her house. i do so love val, and i selfishly wish she would stop being a stay at home mom and come back to work with me again. i deeply love my 2 new co-workers, and i feel val should love them with me. we would be a powerhouse team of 4 wonder women. also, she gave me lots of good pregnancy information and when-the-baby-gets-here tips. and after we were done with childcare, we talked about crazy people, the state of health insurance in america, and other topics of a social justice nature that kept me at her house for 5 hours.

there are certain people i often find myself around who make me think: i am so glad to be friends with you, i am so blessed to know you. because you are sane and healthy, and you have a positive, loving outlook on life. and that is very, very special in our dysfunctional, false-sense-of-entitlement world.

i always come away from spending time with these kinds of people feeling positive and good about the future. i used to find myself singing happy songs to myself afterwards. nowadays, i sing happy songs while drinking a milkshake.

::dark tunnel::

that wasn't the case last summer.

no, last summer i was going through some type of weird, early mid-life crisis in which i didn't know what i wanted, and wasn't sure who i was. i met someone who claimed he, too, didn't know what he wanted...though i've come to believe he knows exactly who he is. and i willfully did things with him i never thought i would or could do, and i lost the sense of values my father worked very, very hard to instill in me (while drinking Bud Light). i had no idea where i needed to be in the world. i thought i was being open and staying non-judgmental, kind and loving; i thought i was giving him exactly what he needed to know it would all work out, that he was okay. in reality, what i was doing was enabling him to feel better about behavior it wasn't okay to feel okay about, but worst of all, i was doing to some other woman what i'd never, ever want done to me. ...and then, when it was no longer physical after a certain time period, it continued on into the emotional affair realm, which is just as bad.

and so i ended that, which i don't think he understood at all. plus, i was ruining all his fun and happy ego trips. i think he thought i was ending it because i got upset when he told me he was, yet again, on another business trip doing it again. and i think he thought i thought he'd been a dickhead while he was here last summer with me, just cheating left and right, right and left. but no, no. he was wrong: i know he was fine while he was here; he literally sort of gave me the key to his heart. i mean, after all, he did tell me on at least one occasion that i was his "gap girl," the person filling in all the places he perceived as most empty in his life faraway.

no. actually, when i said good-bye, i was upset...but that was only because he finally helped me understand that his gaps were completely un-fillable, that i wasting his time and he was wasting mine. and his wife's and my husband's. it had devolved into a dysfunctional, unhealthy, unrewarding relationship...on my end, at least.

it also probably didn't help him that i'd been doing some google research on the topic and figured out his story was no different than 95% of the other stories floating around out there in affairville: my wife is mean, my wife doesn't have enough sex with me, my wife doesn't understand me, my wife and i are no longer close...but i can't leave, because of the children. this is a common storyline which crosses all class, race, and cultural lines. i believe it's true for him on a certain level--but on another level, i finally got that it was such a sad copout. and it also raised my feminist ire that the wife was apparently being blamed...sort of like: "she's MAKING me do it." Which is an excuse...along with "I'm having a hard time."

and so i'd gotten very clear about the situation: he enjoys what he's got at home--the house, the memories, the family life, the comfort zones...and yet there was something deeply missing in him, a certain emptiness of character, that he was unable to consciously make the choice to do the right thing.

but i'm no angel: i fully participated in it with him, for a good 5-6 weeks and then for months over the internet in the form of an emotional affair. and i HAD a clue about what an emotional affair is; i don't think he does/did. at some point, though, i think you have to get to a point where you make your peace, recognize the sin but love the sinner, forgive yourself and move onwards and upwards. it's what jesus liked to do, because jesus knew that's what god likes to do, and thus...so will i. though i occasionally still have bouts of wishing i could scrub my brain.

::light at the end::

that's what i was saying good-bye to: that lifestyle, that selfish way of thinking and being; that false sense of identity. i realized the only way i could ever be fully in my own present was to let go of my past and move forward in the present towards the future (which, ironically, turned out to actually be my past because i realized what a good original choice i'd made) (while sane and not in crisis...which i find is usually when i happen to make my better choices).

and so i wrote a really (seriously, like 10 pages i totally could have summed up in about 5 paragraphs...but i was trying, yet again, to fix someone else) long letter telling him how he could save his marriage, how to make his life better. and then i hit send and slept on that. and when i woke up, i knew: duuuude. i can't help you; i can only help me. neither he nor i had been on the same page throughout the entire experience, and i was done trying to finish the book. a still, small voice inside of me told me the kindest, most loving thing i could do at that point was to just quietly, gently close the book, unfinished, and focus on what i was doing.

and when i told him this, in sort of a roundabout way, nicely but firmly, his last sentence to me was very dickhead-ish and hurtful. after he'd just told me he'd never be a dick to me. but it was that one sentence that taught me so much more about him than the entire 7 months or so of a friendship with him ever had. he is in deep, deep pain and my heart goes out to him and the family he says he loves but can't stop himself from committing multiple acts of betrayal against. and so he does know himself well, because he told me he is quite fucked up. and sadly, i must agree.

and yet.

i send him light and good thoughts sometimes, because i will always be eternally grateful our paths crossed. i think i'm a stronger, better person for it. i think i'm far wiser, and less willing to believe 80% of the bullshit people often try to feed each other (and this goes for myself as well). and i send him light and good thoughts also because i hope he wakes up and finally figures out how to save what he's got...or finally gets clear himself and strikes out on his own to find whatever it is he thinks he needs. because currently? the way he's going about getting what he needs? is toxically unhealthy. which i do say with a certain amount of lingering affection and fondness for him--in other words, he's not a bad man; just kinda...greedy. is all.

also, he's really, really lucky i'm not psycho or vindictive. because i had--honestly--thousands of pieces of hard evidence on him in the form of email exchanges. but i erased them all, because what a horrible thing to do to someone (and here, i am referring to his wife and children)...and i firmly believe that the universe takes care of all those kinds of things, in ways humans are just not as adept at. and that is HIS light at the end of that tunnel, forever and ever amen.

::lights at the end of other people's dark tunnels::

(or: how god works WITH you, not FOR you)

my friend c was as lost as i was last summer, but in slightly different ways. she was focusing on people and things outside of her for her happiness (kind of like me), and at the same time she'd convinced herself god had abandoned and hated her. this was so distressing to hear and witness at times, because even in my darker moments, i've never felt abandoned or disliked by god. and to see and hear someone in deep pain and know i'm unable to help them because only they can help themselves always makes me feel very discombobulated. this is probably the primary reason i never became a talk therapist.

but slowly, c met some people who showed her how she didn't want to be. she struggled with it; she did some scooching and bogging on her journey. but i think she finally figured it out: happiness exists inside, not out. actually, i think c always knew this number one life rule...but i think it just finally sank in, good and hard.

and once she got there, guess! guess what god sent her! someone who sees her for the lovely, good-hearted person she is on the inside; someone who loves her for her shortcomings as well as for her longcomings. and she's all giddy and excited and stuff about the situation. and when i talk to her on the phone i can HEAR the smile in her voice. and if you've never heard a smile in someone's voice, you have missed out. it makes my heart deeply, deeply happy. my cup overfloweth.

now i just have to figure out who to pawn miss melissa off on in a year or so because i'll need to take a trip to south africa to see a wedding (and do some tourist-y things on the side).

::god-lights at the end of very dark tunnels::

and so, today i was thinking about where i was last summer, a year ago, and i can see now what a very dark tunnel i was in, even though i thought i was just fed up and angry and ready to invent a new me.

now, a year later, i am looking back and thinking about the people i met while digging through my tunnel and how they helped me--even when i thought they were hurting me or i was hurting them. i am sure i helped them in some way or another as well. this is simply how the universe works itself out in us.

most importantly, i can look back and see all the good that was at work while i was struggling with all the bad. and while i am sure there are more (new! and improved!) dark tunnels up ahead of me in the future, this past year has helped me deeply understand that god will never give us anything she thinks we can't handle, and we are never, ever truly alone. i mean, i have a baby inside of me and i can't see her, but i know she's always in there, heart beating, growing and getting stronger...and so i am never, ever truly alone. even when it looks and feels like i am. and, one day soon, i will finally get to meet her. this experience is why i've come to believe god is kind of like a big, invisible baby we all have inside of us. he's there. just real still, small, and quiet, heart constantly beating, always growing.

there is always--ALWAYS--a light at the end of every dark tunnel.