#101

About 100 posts ago, on a night that looked a lot like this one, when I was as close to hopeless as I had ever been before, I sat wondering what had happened to get me to a place where I was more alone than I had ever been in my entire life.  If you’ve never felt hopeless before, you might not understand the thinking that accompanies that sort of loneliness.  It’s a feel that is hard to explain unless you’ve felt it before.  It’s a place that you can only visit when you feel isolated from every other place you’ve ever found comfort.  It’s a sadness that, sometimes, feels like it can only be alleviated by an end.  It’s a really scary and ugly place to be. 

While I was trapped in this infinite darkness, I remembered the words of a dear friend who had told me months before that I needed to find time to write because people responded to words and that I always seemed more at peace when I wrote.  Since I was pretty much out of options, I sat down at my kitchen table with a spiral bound notebook.  I started to write.  I started to let  it all out.  Amazingly, I didn’t just feel better, I felt like I was substantiating my experiences.  When I finally put the pen down, I knew that I needed to share those thoughts with the people I loved.  So, I went to blogspot and opened an account.  Internet blogging sites ask you a lot of questions.  What’s your username going to be?  What’s your password?  What are you going to call your blog?  They’re real fucking nosey.  But after I got done answering all their questions, I posted my first blog.  It was called “The Storm.”  Obviously, it was a metaphor for the emotional turmoil I had been drowning in.  Later, a doctor, described what I had been going through as an “anxious episode.”  Very well.  Anyway, I took that blog post and I forwarded it to my closest family members and a very few of my dearest friends.  In the email I composed to them, I tried to explain that I had been in an emotional state of disarray and unrest for many years and that the blog was going to be the medium I was going to use to make sense of all the noise and turbulence.  I was going to write to heal my soul and mend the relationships I had torn apart.  While those may seem like lofty ambitions for someone suffering such a dismal mental circumstances, it made me feel better to make that declaration.  And strangely enough, I never felt like I was setting myself up for failure.  Because I was honest with myself about what I needed:  I needed to survive. 

And survived, I have.  So far, anyway.  But even more than mere survival, I have found a voice.  In the 100 blog posts before this, I have found an outlet.  I have found solace.  I have found strength.  Even more surprising, I have found an alliance.  I have found feedback.  I have found friends.  Friends that I never dreamed I would have.  I have had people walk out of my life, just to have more amazing people walk into it.  I have had people applaud me for sharing my ideas.  I have had people criticize my lack of creativity.  I have been called out publically and privately when I say things that are controversial.  By the way, if you think what I say here is controversial, please visit the inside of my brain.  But anyway, I’ve gotten a lot from this blog.  I’ve also learned to appreciate what surrounds me because of the response I get when I write here. 

I remember the first time somebody shared a blog post on facebook. I remember the first time someone came to me and said “I don’t know if you know this, but other people think you are doing a great job.”  The same man told me “your blog is my dirty little secret.”  I remember the time a girlfriend told me “People think your blog is really negative.  But I get where you are coming from.”  I remember all the times my friends have said “when I read your blog, I read it in your voice!” I remember the first “YES!”  And the first “NO WAY!”  And the first “you are WRONG!”  I remember all of that.  I remember the times that people said “I love your writing.”  And I remember getting calls from people who could recognize my cries for help when nobody else could, myself included. 

So, yes.  This blog has helped me be everything I hoped for.  It has even been more.  Sometimes, though,  I wonder if I am staying focused on what Inner Peas meant when I was mentally searching for the right title for my blog.  I did spend at least four minutes in a staring contest with Blogspot, with all its judgment and demanding questions.  Then when I almost gave up, I thought Inner Peas.  I knew that I was never going to have any inner peace, but I knew I could find some peas.  And that’s where I am now.  At peas.  Or maybe just with peas.  Either way, the peas are my own. 

-Inner Peas

Goddess or Doormat?

After I got divorced and I delved, rather quickly, into the dark counter-culture of dating in your 30s, I ran into a lot of different men.  Divorced men.  Men with children. Men who acted like children. Career Bachelors. Career degenerates. Younger men.  Older men.  Men who carried guns.  Men who referred to their penis as their gun.  Men with clown fetishes.  Men who were, well, clowns.  Lots of men.  There are a lot of men out there.  There’s also a lot of weird shit out there.  Shit you might not recognize as weird if you are married or perpetually single or are estranged from dating.  But you realize how bizarre the dating scene is when you jump into it after years of monogamy.  So, after a little while, I didn’t want to do it anymore.  Mostly, because I realized that there were two kinds of men out there:  1.)  The kind who were interested in me or 2.)  The kind of men who were not interested me.  I always had an alarming connection to the latter. Mostly, because the men who were interested in me were also interested in really weird shit.  And it started to fuck me up, even more than I already had been.  So, I decided it was time to go on sabbatical.

While I was on this indefinite hiatus from men, I talked to  a lot of people about all of this weird stuff that happens in the dating world.  I spent a lot of time wondering why so many weirdoes were gravitating toward me.  I also pondered the reason that all of the “good ones” were entering witness protection in alarming numbers.  Around the time I started wondering “what is wrong with me,” my mom told me there are two kinds of women.  There are strong, independent women and there are desperate, needy women.  She told me “you are strong and independent.  That’s how I raised you!”  She also assured me, that eventually, there would be a nice man who appreciated those values.  I’m sure she thought her words were reassuring…

Now that years have passed since that very (dis)comforting conversation with my mother, I’ve come to accept her words as truth.  So much so, that I don’t even talk to men who have some sort of twisted delusion about saving women who can’t take care of themselves.  Conversely, I don’t make nice with the women who want to be saved.  The most magnificent women I know are strong and determined and have kicked life in the ass to succeed, and sometimes have done it just to survive.  Those are my girls.  Those are the kind of women I surround myself with.  And I’ve come to understand that my mom may have spoken some truth when she said that there were two kinds of women.  Strong and independent  is the right route.

 

Again, I told you that story to tell you this story.  As you may know, and by that I mean everyone who knows me knows that I spent the weekend with my high school girlfriends.  After more than a decade of physical absence, we got together and talked about all of the things that are important to us.  We talked about our kids and our relationships and our jobs.  We talked about our pets and our passions and our demons.  There was a lot of talk about nonsense.  But one conversation I remember very vividly was about being a single, being a parent, and dating.  The whole conversation started while laughing over all the bad sex we have had.  It was really funny.  And very relevant.  Then we talked about being disappointed with men.  

Then, a sudden turn sent us into a conversation about how men are disappointed with us.  It’s laughable really.  There’s no way a man could ever be disappointed with strong, confident women.  But we both stopped laughing and D looked at me and said “why are men so offended by independent women?”  I looked at her and I said “maybe we fancy ourselves strong and independent.  But maybe we aren’t.  Maybe we’re the crazy bitches that every man hides from!”  There was silence.  Painful silence.  Then some raised eyebrows.  Then a lot of laughing.  NO!!!!   That’s not us.  After all we are strong and independent. 

That’s where we left the conversation.  Two strong, independent women who live their lives and raise their children and love the people around them.  It all seemed pretty legitimate.  But secretly, I have been thinking about that conversation all weekend.  I have been wondering if it might be true.  I just kept thinking about what my mom had said, so long ago, about two kinds of women.  Then, real suddenly, I remember why that comment never sat right with me.  When I was in college, I took a class called “literature in art.”  I know.  Fucking hippies.  Always making the world more relavent through art and writing.  Anyway, I took this class and I remember a quote from the acid soaked, bat shit dysfunction womanizer, Pablo Picasso.  Picasso also recognized that there were two kinds of women.  He said “There are two kinds of women, goddesses and doormats.” 

Goddesses or doormats.  Independent or needy.  Two kinds of women.  What does that mean?  How does that translate to who we are?  It’s all fairytale stuff right?  The independent, albeit mistreated, young lady grows up to fall in love with the man she imagined only in her dreams.  She goes from doormat to goddess.  Meanwhile, the people who made her life so excruciating, end up being needy and sufficient on her charity.  It’s a great story.  But, that’s not how the real world works.  You can’t be worshiped as a goddess and be independent at the same time.  It’s an impossibility.  Nobody is going to take care of someone who can take care of herself.  And that’s what it means when people say that there are two kinds of women.  It doesn’t matter what label you apply to them.  There are two kinds of women.  There is the kind of woman who can’t live without the support of someone else.  And there is the kind of woman who will support others, even in their weakest moments. 

So, Picasso was correct.  There are two kinds of women.  The kind who you worship and the kind you wipe your feet on. Know your place. 

-Inner Peas

So...You Want To Date a Single Mom?? (HA! Just kidding. Nobody wants that)

My buddy, Dan Pearce, writes this blog called Single Dad Laughing.  Ok.  He’s not really my friend.  In fact, we’ve never met.  Even more, he has no idea who I am.  But he does write a blog.  And it is called Single Dad Laughing.  But I do read it sometimes.  And usually, I appreciate what he has to say about raising his son in joint custody with his ex-wife, being single, and being forced to laugh at life’s glaring irony.  Even though we aren’t actually friends, I consider us to be peers in life’s proverbial game of checker.  He’s a single parent.  So am I.  He writes a blog.  Me too!  He’s funny and insightful and witty.  Well, I think that goes without saying that I am all of those things as well.  He has 300,000 subscribers.  I have 120 likes on Facebook.  We have a lot in common.  So, henceforth, I will refer to him as my buddy Dan. 

So, anyway, the other day, my buddy Dan wrote a blog titled “So…You Want To Date A Single Dad.”  The post was wildly popular among his followers.  It was especially captivating to his female constituency.  He got thousands of responses to that post.  Most of which, came from women who had either married/dated/sexed single fathers or wanted to have his babies because he’s a single dad.  Again, Dan-O (I call him Dan-O because he’s my buddy) and I have a lot in common, so I related to what he was saying about the struggles of dating while raising a child, extensively on your own.  He was spot on, for the most part.  He talked about how a single dad is hard to date because he talks, incessantly, about his children.  I get that.  Single mom’s do that, too.  He talked about the upstanding character of a single dad.  They are care givers and nurturers and providers.  That resonated with me, too!  So, are single mom’s!  “Perfect,” I thought.  “This guy get’s it!”

And he does.  He gets it.  He understands being a single parent.  He appreciates what it’s like to try to raise a child and give a go at dating.  He said all sorts of great things.  Like looking sloppy and being late and having priorities that come before dating.  He said things that ALL single parents think and feel but don’t ever announce publically.  But the more I read, the more I realized he doesn’t get it.  At all.  Because he’s a single dad.  And single dads are revered.  Single dads are respected.  Single dads get laid all the time.  So, he doesn’t “get” what it’s like to be a single mom. 

Now, forgive me, as I delve into the abyss of gender inequality.  I hope by now, you know me well enough to know that I am not a crazy feminist on a soapbox.  I also hope that you know me well enough to know that the way that I live my life is a direct reflection of how I raise my child.  Largely, by myself.  I am NOT a supermom.  I am NOT a super hero.  I am, MOSTLY, super dysfunctional.  But, I am a mom.  I am a single mom.  And I would never have the audacity to tell you that I am a really good mom.  Instead, I spend my time telling you that I am a dysfunctional mother.  I say that because it’s true and I own what I am.  But, still, I need to take a couple of words to defend myself, and other single mothers out there, who are just like I am. 

I’ve been on dates.  Not many.  But I’ve been out.  I do things.  I like men.  But men don’t always like me.  And I get it.  They don’t always like me for a reason.  It’s been pretty well beaten into my head that single moms are only looking for one thing:  A paycheck to raise their babies.  Single moms are always poor.  They are always on welfare or collecting subsistence from the state.  They are always getting knocked up out of wedlock, by men with good paying jobs and nice cars and fancy houses, so that they can reel in a ‘catch” who will support their children and the lifestyles they can’t afford.  That’s how most men see single mothers.  So, men who date single moms are cautious.  So, single moms have to be equally as cautious.  They have to wonder if they are talking too much about their children.  They have to overcompensate for what they do.  Not the care giving or nurturing part of what they do.  Dating moms have to minimize that part of what they do, but they have to emphasize the providing part of what they do.  A single mom, out on a date with a man can’t say “I spend 25 minutes with my kid earlier, showing him how to take off his thumb.”  No, a single mom has to tell her date how she pays her own rent, insurance, car payment, and child care in order to make him realize she isn’t going out with him because of his paycheck.  But, after she validates herself by paying her own bills, she wonders “did he think I was complaining about that?  I wasn’t!!!  I just was trying to let him know that I’m self sufficient!”  Then she thinks, “Oh, that was too much.”  Only she doesn’t what was too much.  Was it all the kid talk or was it all of the self-sufficiency talk?  WHAT WAS IT???  Ok…He’s never calling back again.  “Wish I hadn’t put out for all of nothing.” 

Ok.  So, my buddy Dan and I differ in our dating experiences.  But he does have some good points about how single parents interact with other people.  He talked about how single parents show up late all the time.  And how they are usually disheveled when they do finally make it to their destinations.  I totally understand that.  Of course, he was talking about dates.  I’m more talking about getting to work.  I usually show up 5-15 minutes late because I have to get my kid to school.  After getting his teeth brushed and deciding on the right clothes and waiting for the teacher to show up at 7:AM. After all of that has been dealt with, I walk into work, already feeling defeated, only to have someone say “Rough night, Miss Angela?  Did you sleep in that?”  To which I respond with “it’s a glamorous life!”And I feign a laugh. 

Now, make no mistake.  My buddy Dan and I have a lot in common.  I get what he says.  In fact, I aspire to be more like Dan-O.  I want to write like he does.  I want to be able to spend all of my days off with my child.  I want to date hot singles on match.com.  But I can’t do all of that.  Why?  Because I am a single mom trying to beat the stereotype.  So, I can’t write about how much I love my kid when he’s sitting on my lap, demanding that I help him build that train set from Christmas.  Or when he’s telling me that he wants to catch frogs in the rain.  I would love to spend all my days off with Radley, only his dad gets to do that, because my days off are his, too.  I won’t go on match.com, because all of the single men in my age group are playing x-box in their mother’s basement.  I don’t want anything about that.  So, for now, I’ll just keep doing the single mom thing.  I won’t tell you I’m a good mom.  I won’t tell you why you are missing out on by not dating me.  I won’t tell you  how I can fulfill your life if you do.  For now, I will just keep doing what I’m doing.  I will keep paying my bills.  I will keep supporting my son.  I will keep teaching him important values.  I will keep saying “fuck” a lot.  That will probably result in many more trips to the principal’s office, with a look of shame on my face, after my child repeats my words.   I will keep having sex with my vibrator until I find a man who really gets it.

-Inner Peas

SEX

So.  Last night I read this article about how “the Millennial’s,” the generation behind me, are having the best sex ever.  I didn’t think much of it.  I always assume that everyone is having better sex than I am.  On account of I’m not having any sex at all.  I was more than prepared to write a revolutionary exposé about how these kids are on to something and maybe the rest of the world should take heed of what they are doing.  They masturbate.  They watch porn.  They are accepting of homosexuality.  They are even experimenting with same sex sex.   Awesome, right?   Then, I made the mistake of asking of others opinions.  And, of course, the responses made me think.  I hate that.  I’m sort of a narcissist, and I really hate when other people give antagonizing feedback.  I don’t want to think about your ideas if they differ from my own.  I am right.  I know I am right.  And I will write about how I am right. 

Unfortunately, in this situation, opposing ideas showed up all over the place.  So much that I couldn’t ignore all of the glaring signs that would make my “assumed” argument in favor of these Millennial’s seem ignorant.  So, I took a deep breath.  I took a long pull off of a sweet apple vodka-tonic.  And I started thinking about what other people had to say about sex.  About how we envision sex.  About how we “see” sex. And about how Millennial’s see life.  I got a few comments online.  I got some text messages.  I even got a phone call.  Wow.  Somebody cared enough to pick up the phone.  I guess sex is a hot button issue for everyone.   

Now, before I start, please remember, I do believe in enjoying sex to its fullest.  Also, be reminded, I haven’t had really good sex in a long time.  A VERY long time.  Part of that is my fault.  So, I am not attacking anybody here.  But again, a lot of things happened to me today, that made me rethink how I was going to spin this free love and sex and sexual orientation conversation that I was going to OWN, on behalf of this article. 

I really hate numbered blogs, but I’m about to make one.  The things That made me think about sex since last night

1.)     FACEBOOK.  I got a few “likes” when I asked for feedback.  I’m not surprised.  Most of the people I know aren’t comfortable enough with sex to like anything with “sex” in the content.  The “likes” the post did get, were pretty obvious.  Those were from people who were comfortable enough with their sexuality to publically announce that they wanted to know where I was going with this crazy public sex talk.  And the even braver, left comments.  Comments like “This my generation!”  Or “What is Sex??”  Or, the very brazen response that sex is not as good as it used to be.  (x2)

2.)  Sex Band-Aid:  Yes.  It’s a song.  By the folk queen,  Antje Duvakot.  “I don’t need your baggage, I don’t need your grief…I need you like a cigarette, I need you like my whiskey. Drag me down you are the ground, I am gravity…Throw a sex band-aid on my open wounds.  Kiss me, I will swallow my pride.”  Right?  Isn’t that what we all are willing to accept when the fantasy of good sex eludes us? 

3.)   A text from a friend that said “I’m going to stay in fairyland where sex equals love.”  The words from a counterpart in love’s deceitful game.  A thirty something divorcee.   This caught my attention, though.  I tried to counter.  I said “I wish.  Sex and Love just haven’t gotten me very far.”  Then she said something crazy.  She said something that I wasn’t expecting.  She said “where has promiscuity got you, this far?  Or where has it gotten me, for that matter?”   I told her that I think that sexual liberation is a magnificent idea.  I never have been.  And I REALLY want a little sexual freedom in my life.  Then she said, “When you have sex with somebody, you leave a piece of yourself with them.”  Great.  Thanks for ruining sexual liberation for me.

4.)  That guy.  You know the guy.  The one who always shows up at the most inopportune times.  The one who stole my heart with stories of his bad choices and feelings of apathy towards everyone he has ever known?   You know that guy.  I’ve told his story here 1,000 times.  Well, that guy showed up this morning, unannounced.  And it took me by surprise.  Because there was a time when I was so captivated with him that I abstained from sex for nearly two years, waiting, hoping, that he would find his way back to my bed again.  So, yeah.  I felt like a hypocrite writing about how free love and sex are going to rid us of our demons, when my demon stared me in the face, as he reluctantly wrapped his arms around my waist, when I demanded that he hug me.  And for the first time, I was the first to step away from the hug.  Because with him, I always want a hug to be more than a hug.  I want to the sex we had to be the love we made.   

Millennials:  Your view of sex is remarkably admirable.  Hippies:  You pioneered sexual liberation.  Of course, you turned out to be more prudent than your parents were before you.  So did we all.  Sex is never as sexy as it was in the beginning.  But it’s so good.  Let’s don’t forget why we do it.  Let’s also don’t forget why we shouldn’t do it.   We cannot preclude sex because love is absent.  We also shouldn’t make love a condition of sex. 

-Inner Peas

EMERGENCY!!!!!

I’ve been such a tool lately. Everything has been so serious.  And so heavy.  And SOOOO boring.  I’ve been in this funk with my anxiety and my body and my bank account and my self-pity.  It’s really exhausting to be so disenchanted by everything.  Ironically, my new year’s resolution, which I never would have shared with anyone at the New Year, was to get out of the funk.  To get right with myself and with my kid and with my creditors and with the universe.  Also, it included laughing more.  I know, those are a lot of really lofty ambitions, but that’s what I told myself I would do.  When I wrote it down, as I do every year, while making cynical comments at other’s resolutions, I actually wrote “Get yer shit together.  And laugh.   You’ve done it before.  You can do it again.”  -Angela Padgett

So.  Anyway, I started wondering when life got so fucking serious.  Then, during a day long conversation with my girlfriend, who is currently underway, somewhere between here and Panama and American Samoa and Nome.  I realized, we are so serious, because everything is an emergency.  All the time.  Fires.  Floods.  Headaches.  Snow below the Mason-Dixon line.  Commercial television on Coast Guard Cutters patrolling the oceans for migrant operations and drug intervention and fisheries patrols.  Shaving waivers.  Wait.  What?   Where’s the line?  Where does comfort turn into necessity.  Where does necessity become emergency? 

I think this is why we don’t laugh as much anymore.  This is why we are so critical of ourselves and the people around us.  Because we have no concept of what is serious and what should just be accepted as discomfort or inconstancy or LIFE.  When did the fires and floods become internet outages and snow days?  And I’m not trying to be overly judgmental, but let’s be honest. Fifteen years ago, internet access wasn’t a commodity, it was a luxury.  Only to be provided to the very wealthy.  Nine years ago, New Orleans was under water, as the result of one of the most horrific natural disasters in United States history.  But still, losing cable and a dusting of snow are the most important things we have to worry about. 

Back to my day-long  email conversation, with my girlfriend who is floating on a lightning rod in the middle of some ocean, just waiting for shit to get real.  She can email me.  From the middle of the ocean, to air her grievances.  I laughed when she apologized to me for venting.  I said “SISTER!!!  There was a time, not too long ago that internet didn’t exist underway at all!  Now you and I can talk as if we were  just a building away!”  She said, “that’s the problem, losing the internet is an emergency now.   The internet.   Is an emergency.” 

So, again, back to laughing.  Let’s laugh at “emergencies.”  Because we have completely lost perspective.  Internet and cable are not important.  Motrin and razor blades are not emergencies.  You can buy Tylenol at Safeway or Target or 7-11.  You can get after shave at any of those places, as well.  If you aren’t connected to the internet, you don’t’ need to scream through the phone at your provider’s call center.  You shouldn’t have to visit your therapist because you are out of touch with the rest of the world.  In fact, maybe you should revel in not being connected or not having easy access to Tramadol when you turn your ankle.  

Maybe, just sitting with your thoughts and your discomfort will make you think more about the things that are actually important.  Maybe, being less reliant on other people will, in turn, make you more self reliant.   MAYBE, being self reliant, will help you survive an actual emergency. 

-Inner Peas