Sunday, March 15, 2009
With Waylon, Willie and the Boys
Heading out to Luckenbach today, which is where Tex and I had at one point thought we'd get married. Perhaps it's that, perhaps it's the gloomy weather, perhaps just the fact that I'm getting tired (a person can only hold out so long), but I feel the sadness leaning in on me again today. I dread going back to the dark place of last week.... It's so oppressive, so consuming. I know that I have to go back there (the only way out is through, as they say), but I'm hesitant to really let it take over again. Not while there are still fun times to be had here with Dad and Kath, who keep me laughing, buy me beers, and adore everything about Austin that I always have loved. It's a bit of optimism and a bit of denial on my part, and maybe just delaying the inevitable. Well, here goes. I'll do my best.
Friday, March 13, 2009
To Be Big
Dad and Kathy are here, and thank goodness for that. They brought buckets of love to pour over me, and lord do I need it. It's good to feel taken care of, and they're being absolutely perfect with Tex, loving but acknowledging that everything isn't "perfect," that she's going through a hard time and may need her space. It's a good balance.
It's rainy in Texas and I can't seem to sleep past 7am anymore, but that's ok. I enjoy these quiet mornings, just the cat and I, til the sun comes up around 8 and the birds start going bezerk. I drink my coffee and I read and I give little wordless prayers to the universe to ease my achin' little heart. Yesterday at work one of my coworkers, an older Mexican woman who has been my Afterschool Mama for two years, took a bracelet off her wrist and put it on mine. It's a stretchy bead thing you can buy at all sorts of places these days, with pictures of Mary and Jesus and various saints on each bead. She told me it'll protect me, and in a weird way, I believe it. I don't want to take it off. The way she just pulled it off of herself and gave it to me... I think only people who come from poverty (she does, oh man does she ever) know how to give that way. This woman has about three teeth and not enough money to replace the glasses she broke, so they're taped together at the corner.... and yet she feeds the homeless on her street and gives her much-better-off coworkers the few trinkets she owns. I feel like there's power in that, and I'm going to keep this bracelet on until I reach the end of this particular road.
Also bolstering me up these days are the kiddos in my program. They made me a bunch of cards yesterday. One reads, "Ms. Caylin, You are like a real teacher to me." Wow! What an honor! Surely not like a REAL teacher?! :) And another says "Dear Mrs. Caitlin, I like you because you are pretty and you are nice and you made Stampede and you let us go out on the playground." (They didn't actually spell all that correctly, but I'm taking editorial license.) And a third wrote, "Good luck to your parents and family," which I find just hilarious. As in, "They have to deal with you now! Good luck!!" The kids hung on me yesterday like monkeys. They all told me they loved me and I hugged them back hard and long. One more day to see their smiling faces, and then I'll be gone, and I simply can't believe that.
Today I picked up Kate Chopin's "The Awakening," which I read for the first time in AP English with Erin, and have read about ten times since. Each round reveals something else in the story that I love. This time, it speaks to me in a whole new way - the dissatisfaction in your life, the need to change, the apparent impossibility of rewriting your own story. Of course, in this novelette, Edna Pontellier drowns herself at the end, because in her world there literally WAS no option for change. So I guess I should feel lucky. I don't have to walk into the swirling Gulf surf, stripped of long skirts and corsets and stockings and all, and let the tide sweep me under - that isn't the only way to reclaim my Self and take possession of my life again. I can get in my car, strike out from Texas, and just go home. I don't have to rest in a dissatisfying partnership, I don't have to accept a way of being that doesn't express all of who I am. I can let my heart love with a great ferocity, with all its stretch and vigor, and push the false limits of my life out into the limitless potential of my existence. I can "be big," as J tells me. I think I'm gonna try.
It's rainy in Texas and I can't seem to sleep past 7am anymore, but that's ok. I enjoy these quiet mornings, just the cat and I, til the sun comes up around 8 and the birds start going bezerk. I drink my coffee and I read and I give little wordless prayers to the universe to ease my achin' little heart. Yesterday at work one of my coworkers, an older Mexican woman who has been my Afterschool Mama for two years, took a bracelet off her wrist and put it on mine. It's a stretchy bead thing you can buy at all sorts of places these days, with pictures of Mary and Jesus and various saints on each bead. She told me it'll protect me, and in a weird way, I believe it. I don't want to take it off. The way she just pulled it off of herself and gave it to me... I think only people who come from poverty (she does, oh man does she ever) know how to give that way. This woman has about three teeth and not enough money to replace the glasses she broke, so they're taped together at the corner.... and yet she feeds the homeless on her street and gives her much-better-off coworkers the few trinkets she owns. I feel like there's power in that, and I'm going to keep this bracelet on until I reach the end of this particular road.
Also bolstering me up these days are the kiddos in my program. They made me a bunch of cards yesterday. One reads, "Ms. Caylin, You are like a real teacher to me." Wow! What an honor! Surely not like a REAL teacher?! :) And another says "Dear Mrs. Caitlin, I like you because you are pretty and you are nice and you made Stampede and you let us go out on the playground." (They didn't actually spell all that correctly, but I'm taking editorial license.) And a third wrote, "Good luck to your parents and family," which I find just hilarious. As in, "They have to deal with you now! Good luck!!" The kids hung on me yesterday like monkeys. They all told me they loved me and I hugged them back hard and long. One more day to see their smiling faces, and then I'll be gone, and I simply can't believe that.
Today I picked up Kate Chopin's "The Awakening," which I read for the first time in AP English with Erin, and have read about ten times since. Each round reveals something else in the story that I love. This time, it speaks to me in a whole new way - the dissatisfaction in your life, the need to change, the apparent impossibility of rewriting your own story. Of course, in this novelette, Edna Pontellier drowns herself at the end, because in her world there literally WAS no option for change. So I guess I should feel lucky. I don't have to walk into the swirling Gulf surf, stripped of long skirts and corsets and stockings and all, and let the tide sweep me under - that isn't the only way to reclaim my Self and take possession of my life again. I can get in my car, strike out from Texas, and just go home. I don't have to rest in a dissatisfying partnership, I don't have to accept a way of being that doesn't express all of who I am. I can let my heart love with a great ferocity, with all its stretch and vigor, and push the false limits of my life out into the limitless potential of my existence. I can "be big," as J tells me. I think I'm gonna try.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
You Must Change Your Life
Erin told me in an email yesterday that she's been reading this, and using it to show herself that if I can make changes in my life, she can too. Wow. That's really flattering, especially because I feel like I'm stumbling through this with very little grace, and if you saw my face or heard my voice in the past couple of days, I'm not sure you'd call this venture successful. I've been a wreck and a half. Today was the first day I bothered to wear clothes that actually fit into our dresscode at work, and I even put on eyeshadow - which was just too far beyond my capacity as a functioning human for the past week. Is this progress? Is this success? I'm not sure. Still, maybe the point isn't to be good at this... maybe the point is just to DO IT, and survive it. Sometimes it feels like I can't even do that much, but the minutes pass. Then the hours pass. Then suddenly a whole day is gone, and I'm still breathing in and out, and sometimes I even laugh.
I told my kids yesterday that I'm leaving. The entire cafeteria, full of 120 K-6th graders, erupted in yells of "noooooo!!" They're really affected. Of course, kids are always affected when their routine changes, and I'm sure my staff will have some residual chaos to deal with when I'm gone... but these youngun's came up and hugged me, begged me not to go, told me they'll miss me, tried to make me smile. I had tears in my eyes. They're such amazing little souls. We're a family here in afterschool, we see each other every day, we share our triumphs and our failures, we get angry and then we fix it, we apologize, we grow. I'm going to miss them way down in the deepest depths of my heart.
Today is easier, though. First of all, I slept, with a little help from my good friend Tylenol PM. Secondly, Tex wasn't screaming obscenities at me today, so that's an improvement. Thirdly, my Dad and step-mom are coming into town tonight. I need them here so badly... I need the unconditional love, the support, I need someone to take care of me a little bit. I need to laugh as hard as they make me laugh. Parents!! Hah. Then my mom comes next Wednesday, then I drive home. Holy cow. The time is flying.
Well, this just goes to show you: you really can reach down deep into your life and pull it up by the roots. You can listen to whatever calling is pulling you - toward a career change (Meg!), a relationship change (Erin!), a locale change (Lara!)... you can do it all at once. You can leave yourself totally groundless, terrified, insecure, out of control, grieving, exhausted, and in pain... and the days still pass, and you do okay. You keep eating, hopefully... you feed your cat, you wash your dishes, occasionally you take a shower... you see the sun rise and the sun set, you do some laundry... and sometimes you even have good days. It's amazing what you can live without (your partner, your apartment, your job, your sanity) that feels so vital to Being Alive, but actually isn't. You can take all of that away and you'd still be standing there, your essential Self would still exist.
So, why not? You want a better, different way of being? Listen to some distant voice telling you, like Rilke's Apollo, "You must change you life."
I told my kids yesterday that I'm leaving. The entire cafeteria, full of 120 K-6th graders, erupted in yells of "noooooo!!" They're really affected. Of course, kids are always affected when their routine changes, and I'm sure my staff will have some residual chaos to deal with when I'm gone... but these youngun's came up and hugged me, begged me not to go, told me they'll miss me, tried to make me smile. I had tears in my eyes. They're such amazing little souls. We're a family here in afterschool, we see each other every day, we share our triumphs and our failures, we get angry and then we fix it, we apologize, we grow. I'm going to miss them way down in the deepest depths of my heart.
Today is easier, though. First of all, I slept, with a little help from my good friend Tylenol PM. Secondly, Tex wasn't screaming obscenities at me today, so that's an improvement. Thirdly, my Dad and step-mom are coming into town tonight. I need them here so badly... I need the unconditional love, the support, I need someone to take care of me a little bit. I need to laugh as hard as they make me laugh. Parents!! Hah. Then my mom comes next Wednesday, then I drive home. Holy cow. The time is flying.
Well, this just goes to show you: you really can reach down deep into your life and pull it up by the roots. You can listen to whatever calling is pulling you - toward a career change (Meg!), a relationship change (Erin!), a locale change (Lara!)... you can do it all at once. You can leave yourself totally groundless, terrified, insecure, out of control, grieving, exhausted, and in pain... and the days still pass, and you do okay. You keep eating, hopefully... you feed your cat, you wash your dishes, occasionally you take a shower... you see the sun rise and the sun set, you do some laundry... and sometimes you even have good days. It's amazing what you can live without (your partner, your apartment, your job, your sanity) that feels so vital to Being Alive, but actually isn't. You can take all of that away and you'd still be standing there, your essential Self would still exist.
So, why not? You want a better, different way of being? Listen to some distant voice telling you, like Rilke's Apollo, "You must change you life."
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
a matter of survival
Ever have songs in your life that you love, but in their content they don't really specifically point to your life in any way, and then suddenly one day, they do? And you're like, "Oh my god, that song was singing about this point in my life years ago, and I only know it now."
While I was living in Tel Aviv, I made a CD of songs that seemed sort of fierce and strong to me, and made copies and sent them to all of my friends. We were all fresh out of college at that time, struggling with our first steps into true independence (is it still true independence if I'm moving home to my mother's house?? eesh), and I thought these songs expressed something in me that battled to be realized. They made me feel brave when in fact I was cowering in a corner.
I guess they still do that. But I pulled the CD out today and it occured to me that all of these songs sing to me NOW. So perfectly, I almost wonder if, three years ago, I was struggling with this same decision.
First there's the part of me that just wants to break away, that feels the calling to leave, the part that thinks, Since you left, I'm feeling better - that's what you get when you stay together too long. And the part of me that aches to just GO sings wouldn't it be good if we could hop a flight to anywhere - so long to this life.
It could be worse, I could've missed my calling.
There's the part of me that is just fierce and wild and wants to kick and thrash against the pain. This part of me isn't very big and doesn't overpower the rest of me, but it's there. It sings, I'm not gonna lie, not gonna make up my mind tonight - I'm not gonna pretend, I cleared outta town so I could clear my head - I'm not gonna smile, all the shit that's happened's gonna take awhile... That part of me is the wild-woman part who flexes my muscles and keeps me moving when I think I just can't face another day of this. It says, I'm not gonna think about all the shit you want me to think - I'm not gonna say who I spent my time with yesterday - and I'm not gonna choose, cuz in the end either way I'd still lose - and I'm not gonna wait - I was thinking about drinking my way through today....
And then the part of me that just wants to be HOME. It aches for the comfort of it: I think I'd like to go back home and take it easy - there's a woman that I'd like to get to know living there - everybody seems to wonder what it's like down here - gotta get away from this day-to-day running around - everybody knows, this is nowhere.
Got any songs that I should listen to, that will get me through the next 2 weeks? Please share them. I will put them in my ipod and listen to them on repeat until my car crosses into Arkansas and I can start to put this chapter behind me.
While I was living in Tel Aviv, I made a CD of songs that seemed sort of fierce and strong to me, and made copies and sent them to all of my friends. We were all fresh out of college at that time, struggling with our first steps into true independence (is it still true independence if I'm moving home to my mother's house?? eesh), and I thought these songs expressed something in me that battled to be realized. They made me feel brave when in fact I was cowering in a corner.
I guess they still do that. But I pulled the CD out today and it occured to me that all of these songs sing to me NOW. So perfectly, I almost wonder if, three years ago, I was struggling with this same decision.
First there's the part of me that just wants to break away, that feels the calling to leave, the part that thinks, Since you left, I'm feeling better - that's what you get when you stay together too long. And the part of me that aches to just GO sings wouldn't it be good if we could hop a flight to anywhere - so long to this life.
It could be worse, I could've missed my calling.
There's the part of me that is just fierce and wild and wants to kick and thrash against the pain. This part of me isn't very big and doesn't overpower the rest of me, but it's there. It sings, I'm not gonna lie, not gonna make up my mind tonight - I'm not gonna pretend, I cleared outta town so I could clear my head - I'm not gonna smile, all the shit that's happened's gonna take awhile... That part of me is the wild-woman part who flexes my muscles and keeps me moving when I think I just can't face another day of this. It says, I'm not gonna think about all the shit you want me to think - I'm not gonna say who I spent my time with yesterday - and I'm not gonna choose, cuz in the end either way I'd still lose - and I'm not gonna wait - I was thinking about drinking my way through today....
And then the part of me that just wants to be HOME. It aches for the comfort of it: I think I'd like to go back home and take it easy - there's a woman that I'd like to get to know living there - everybody seems to wonder what it's like down here - gotta get away from this day-to-day running around - everybody knows, this is nowhere.
Got any songs that I should listen to, that will get me through the next 2 weeks? Please share them. I will put them in my ipod and listen to them on repeat until my car crosses into Arkansas and I can start to put this chapter behind me.
In this image, I am the gazelle.
To say that I went through the emotional wringer last night is putting it lightly. More like the emotional torture rack. The emotional monster truck rally. The emotional lion-tearing-at-the-gazelle's-carcass.
I'm far from innocent in this drama. I'm not going to make excuses for myself, or even tell you here what's happening, but I sort of feel like it's beyond the point. No break-up is without a deep tearing pain and unfortunately, this is ours. It's sort of my fault; it's sort of inevitable. I'm not leaving with grace, as I'd hoped I could, and I'll always be sorry for that, and I hope that someday Tex will forgive me for all the ways I've hurt her. I hope she doesn't remember me this way.
Went to sleep around 12:30 or 1am last night, woke up, as is becoming my habit, at 5:25. Keep in mind that in Austin, the sun doesn't rise until 7:50. So that's two and a half hours of pitch-black dark left to sleep in, and my body just throws that away like so much pocket change. "Sleep?" it asks. "Me??? I don't need no stinking sleep." And it squirms around under the blankets until I finally just give up and turn the light on.
Thank the heavens above that my father and step-mom are coming tomorrow! I don't know if Tex is going to be able to take it. I don't blame her one bit if she can't. Her pain right now is even bigger and fiercer than mine. I just need to laugh and have a few beers and admire this town one last time, and they're going to do that with me, for me. But after that, I don't know if I'll make it all the way through to the 24th, which was my original plan. The need to get outta here is growing steadily stronger.
Well, to cleaning my house. In the middle of all this, I have so much to do at work and home that I shouldn't even be sitting here writing this right now. Well. We all do what we have to do to get by.
I'm far from innocent in this drama. I'm not going to make excuses for myself, or even tell you here what's happening, but I sort of feel like it's beyond the point. No break-up is without a deep tearing pain and unfortunately, this is ours. It's sort of my fault; it's sort of inevitable. I'm not leaving with grace, as I'd hoped I could, and I'll always be sorry for that, and I hope that someday Tex will forgive me for all the ways I've hurt her. I hope she doesn't remember me this way.
Went to sleep around 12:30 or 1am last night, woke up, as is becoming my habit, at 5:25. Keep in mind that in Austin, the sun doesn't rise until 7:50. So that's two and a half hours of pitch-black dark left to sleep in, and my body just throws that away like so much pocket change. "Sleep?" it asks. "Me??? I don't need no stinking sleep." And it squirms around under the blankets until I finally just give up and turn the light on.
Thank the heavens above that my father and step-mom are coming tomorrow! I don't know if Tex is going to be able to take it. I don't blame her one bit if she can't. Her pain right now is even bigger and fiercer than mine. I just need to laugh and have a few beers and admire this town one last time, and they're going to do that with me, for me. But after that, I don't know if I'll make it all the way through to the 24th, which was my original plan. The need to get outta here is growing steadily stronger.
Well, to cleaning my house. In the middle of all this, I have so much to do at work and home that I shouldn't even be sitting here writing this right now. Well. We all do what we have to do to get by.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
7:30am and It's Still Dark Out in Texas!!!!
"If you will hold my hand, then I will hold my breath and cast my fate in the direction of my heart. I will put on hold my lesser dreams and reach for what is truly mine.
Say you will, and I will buy a ticket for this ride. It will not be cheap, nor always smooth. But I don't care. I don't care. It has finally come to that....."
Someone told me to buy this book (Enchanted Love by Marianne Williamson) a few weeks ago, surely not understanding the extent to which it would (very literally) change my life. But I keep repeating this passage to myself. "Cast my fate in the direction of my heart" indeed.
Some people think this decision of mine is foolish. But I have never been called to something as strongly as I'm being called to this. So, I hold my breath and cast my fate. "It has finally come to that...."
Say you will, and I will buy a ticket for this ride. It will not be cheap, nor always smooth. But I don't care. I don't care. It has finally come to that....."
Someone told me to buy this book (Enchanted Love by Marianne Williamson) a few weeks ago, surely not understanding the extent to which it would (very literally) change my life. But I keep repeating this passage to myself. "Cast my fate in the direction of my heart" indeed.
Some people think this decision of mine is foolish. But I have never been called to something as strongly as I'm being called to this. So, I hold my breath and cast my fate. "It has finally come to that...."
From Transcending Union Always Forward
Yesterday was one of the hardest days, but in a totally new way. First of all, I'd only slept 4-5 hours and then had to work for 12 hours, which in itself was fairly hellish. But at work I sent an email to the whole campus telling them that I'm leaving in two weeks. The result was the equivalent of standing in a receiving line at a wake all freakin' day. I got a dozen emails from people telling me how much they've appreciated me and the work I've done, which would have been flattering if I weren't so damned depressed. All day long people were stopping by my office, hugging me, crying, telling me how sorry they are, that they'll miss me, that they hope I'm okay. I told them each that I'm sad to go, that I wouldn't do it unless I had to, that no, I'm not okay, but I will be. It was freakin' exhausting. By the end of the day I didn't have energy left to smile at the kids. I took them outside and asked them to play kickball by themselves - so not like me!
This is maybe one of the hardest things I've ever done, but I'm amazed that it still feels RIGHT. For all the pain it's causing - in myself as well as in Tex (and that pain, the shadow I see in her eyes, the way she looks at me with an expression of begging and pleading and how-can-you-do-this-to-me, is sort of worse than my own) - it feels like I'm finally stepping into who I really am, what I really need, what I really want. It's like part of me has been severed for a long time, and I'm now being stitched back together. Of course, it involves severing something else - this relationship, this life. But as I close this chapter of my history and move into the future, I feel like... well, I feel like one of those tiny capsules that you put in water and watch it grow into a dinosaur-shaped sponge, or a little mini strong man, or rubbery lizard or something. Like this experience, this decision, is freeing me to grow out into who I really am.
And I pray that the same happens for Tex. She may not forgive me for awhile... she may come to hate me for a bit... either way, neither of us will be Okay for quite some time. But I pray, and pray hard, that she comes through this... that she grows into her fullest Self... that she forgives me as she takes possession of her own strength. Sigh. I love her still, and I have to hurt her, and that SUCKS.
So yesterday began the long string of goodbyes to my LIFE here. It's been a good life. I think I've done some good work at my program. One of the teachers there told me that she's been at the school for 9 years and she's seen a lot of teachers come and go, but she thinks I'm the biggest loss the school has ever had. I cried at that. Shit. At least I know I've made a difference, and leave behind me a strong program, and teachers who support afterschool, and hopefully - I pray - some kids who will survive their difficult lives, taking with them some of the love and strength that my staff and I have tried to impart.
Fuck, this is hard.
Have I told any of you how much I love my cat? He sits on my desk beside me, breathing slow and purring, watching my words appear on the screen as if he has any clue what they mean. Trust me, he can't read - the boy can hardly figure out how to keep his pee inside the litter box - but he's absolutely my favorite animal on the earth. He's coming with me on the long ride home. Jessica reminded me not to let him steer. Good advice like this is always welcome, friends. Pass it along. :)
Here we go into another difficult day. "From night into day, from transcending union / always forward into difficult day," as Galway Kinnel writes. Always forward.
This is maybe one of the hardest things I've ever done, but I'm amazed that it still feels RIGHT. For all the pain it's causing - in myself as well as in Tex (and that pain, the shadow I see in her eyes, the way she looks at me with an expression of begging and pleading and how-can-you-do-this-to-me, is sort of worse than my own) - it feels like I'm finally stepping into who I really am, what I really need, what I really want. It's like part of me has been severed for a long time, and I'm now being stitched back together. Of course, it involves severing something else - this relationship, this life. But as I close this chapter of my history and move into the future, I feel like... well, I feel like one of those tiny capsules that you put in water and watch it grow into a dinosaur-shaped sponge, or a little mini strong man, or rubbery lizard or something. Like this experience, this decision, is freeing me to grow out into who I really am.
And I pray that the same happens for Tex. She may not forgive me for awhile... she may come to hate me for a bit... either way, neither of us will be Okay for quite some time. But I pray, and pray hard, that she comes through this... that she grows into her fullest Self... that she forgives me as she takes possession of her own strength. Sigh. I love her still, and I have to hurt her, and that SUCKS.
So yesterday began the long string of goodbyes to my LIFE here. It's been a good life. I think I've done some good work at my program. One of the teachers there told me that she's been at the school for 9 years and she's seen a lot of teachers come and go, but she thinks I'm the biggest loss the school has ever had. I cried at that. Shit. At least I know I've made a difference, and leave behind me a strong program, and teachers who support afterschool, and hopefully - I pray - some kids who will survive their difficult lives, taking with them some of the love and strength that my staff and I have tried to impart.
Fuck, this is hard.
Have I told any of you how much I love my cat? He sits on my desk beside me, breathing slow and purring, watching my words appear on the screen as if he has any clue what they mean. Trust me, he can't read - the boy can hardly figure out how to keep his pee inside the litter box - but he's absolutely my favorite animal on the earth. He's coming with me on the long ride home. Jessica reminded me not to let him steer. Good advice like this is always welcome, friends. Pass it along. :)
Here we go into another difficult day. "From night into day, from transcending union / always forward into difficult day," as Galway Kinnel writes. Always forward.
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