Fading the Stereotype

Every once in awhile, I realize how often I rely on stereotypes as a sort of shorthand to get through life. Stereotypes of course have a terribly bad rap because they are so often misused and abused. In fact, stereotypes exist because they are based around a relative truth. The problem of course is when we wittle existence down to the sum of the stereotype rather than being open to the fact that just because someone or something falls within the parameters of a stereotype does not mean that that is the sum of their existence. The other problem is that stereotypes generally do not mix well. Or rather we have segregated them so thoroughly that we have a hard time seeing two or more stereotypes in the same person.

Case in point: I teach art at a community college. Most of the students and teachers I associate with are what I would call fringe people. Meaning they do not fit some of the more popular and limiting stereotypes of teens and early twenty-somethings out there. They learned early on to go with their own flow and seem now to have found their stride and are revelling in it. What has caused me to ponder all this is one particular student that keeps hitting my radar. She is petite, pretty, has lovely shoulder length hair, and dresses with a rather practically feminine flair. She is however covered in tattoos. Not cute butterflies or hearts, discreetly placed here and there for easy disguise or for provocative peeking - I mean she is covered - two full sleeves, a large tat across her upper back, wrists, stomach, and so on. The dichotomy of her rather girlie appearance set against the rougher, edgier world of hardcore tattooing is a jarring reality for me every time. This is of course my own reliance on stereotypes working against me. She seems quite content with herself.

What I see in her is the evolution of identity. She isn't just going against stereotype, she's merging stereotypes. Rather than picking one that she is most comfortable with at the forfeiture of some other part of herself, she is blithely indulging it all. This is truly fascinating to me. So few people are able to actually carry this off. And frankly there is very little evidence of people even willing to try. I wonder if it is because people are generally uncourageous when it comes to personal expression. Or if it is because we as a society are so hell-bent on categorizing that even when someone truly new and innovative pops up, they eventually spawn a host of copy-cats and a new category is born - thus, effectively squelching the individuality that created it in the first place. Whatever the case, it's nice to have my own complacency skewed a bit...looking forward to more of it ~ I hope.

Contradictory Thought

I find myself in a sort of constant state of contradictory thought. As confessed in previous posts, I want very much to be supportive of my husband's new found sobriety, but find I resent his healthy appearance instead. I wonder if it wouldn't be easier to give in, and just live happily with him and then I realize that I am not willing to give up the very real freedom I have come to enjoy - freedom that is contradictory to being married.

Outside of this situation, but connected to it, I have a very close friend who was invaluable to me when my head was not yet able to handle what was going on. Over several months our friendship deepened and I entertained thoughts of something more. Instead, we remain friends and he has recently found a lovely girl who makes him quite happy. Being a true friend, I am very pleased for him, but to the contrary, miss him terribly, and selfishly want him all to myself again as we are not nearly as close these past few months as we once were.

There are days when I think I will be lonely forever and that I will never feel true intimacy again. And on others I realize how against my nature it is to be bitter, angry and depressed - that generally, I am a happy person and dragging out the grudge is not me. Then I am wary, afraid that the natural happiness that sustains me, also makes me naive and trusting - something I no longer believe to be beneficial, and I am afraid because the two men I have loved most, who at different times and for different reasons have made me the happiest, are lost to me and I can't even imagine where to begin to start over...

If, that is, I do not in fact just give in and take the easy way out, live in a blissful state of convenient forgetting - let my husband convince me that the new and improved him is here to stay and will make up for the last almost 3 years. I feel like I should give him the chance, but sometimes I can't help thinking how full of amazing people the world really is and that I too am amazing and deserve better than broken promises and unreturned love.

Transformation

My significant other (it's difficult to refer to him as husband, although we are married, since he has been emotionally and mentally absent from our marriage for roughly 3 years) has given up the drink. Yes, it was alcohol that made him into an utter ass of the grandest kind for three fourths of our marriage and one third of our relationship. And it was alcohol itself that made him sober. You see, his body actually rejected alcohol, making him quite physically ill. On doctor's orders and his unwillingness to throw up 6-8 times a day, he quit drinking. Almost overnight his gregariousness returned and his surliness subsided. He began telling me he loved me on at the very least a daily basis...words I had heard infrequently and for an entire year not at all, not once. He began rising early, making breakfast, feeding and caring for the pets and looking after our home. Previously, he crawled out of bed hungover in the late afternoon, to shower and go to work and drink until late into the night. Now, more often than not, he is home before 9pm...a phenomenon that surprises me still...as previously he rarely, if ever returned before 1am and for a five month period never came home before 7am - usually still drunk or on something harder. And finally, he has begun painting again...something he could not live without before and gave up almost entirely while drunk for three years.

You may think to yourself how great it is that this man has found his way...that he is on the path to recovery. And truthfully, there is a great part of me that remembers this person from before, missed him and is glad to see him again. I am happy that he is no longer killing himself. But, and it is here that I reveal a rather dark side of myself, I am actually quite angry. It feels selfish and mean to be angry with him - especially since he has spent the last month being the utmost of nice and sweet and kind. There is a part of me who thinks about how easy it would be to forget the last three years and slide comfortably back into this partnership with this man I remember - and there have been times in these last four weeks where I have felt quite comfortable with him, enjoyed him even. But despite this transformation in his personality and behavior, I find myself running up against the wall of my anger, my distrust and my weariness. Why am I angry? What am I angry about?

I am angry because he didn't give up drinking because he loved me or cared about us and our future - he quit because his body literally rejected alcohol. Radical, but hardly romantic and loving.

I am angry because while I struggle with sleep deprivation, 60 hour work weeks and a body that gets fatter everyday, he has in one month gained 20 pounds of muscle, looks great, is sleeping well, eating right and has plenty of time to paint every day.

I am angry because we don't talk about the last three years and while he seems to be starting a whole new way of life, I am having a hard time forgetting the crap and hell I went through for three years with no acknowledgement, no apology and no recourse - am I supposed to just roll over, smile pretty and forget it all happened?

I am angry because I want very much to remain detached and aloof and focus on myself - work hard, exercise, get out of debt. But I find him invading my space, my rhythm and my life. I had become quite comfortable not interacting with him. And not getting involved with his dramas. I had settled into a rhythm that was actually working for me. And now I am all fucked up again.

I am angry because I want so much to be supportive and happy for him - and I feel a ton of resentment instead. Makes me feel shallow and small and mean.

I am angry because I feel as if I have to sensor what I say - edit derrogatory comments about past behaviour or drunk friends - because he doesn't want to hear about it. But I need to talk about it, make him understand.

I am angry because I am afraid that he will never understand.

I am angry because I was ready to leave him, move on with my life and now I feel like I am expected to stay and give it another go.

I am angry because I expect myself to be generous and give him credit for trying hard and for being really nice now and for making up in actions for what we don't talk about in words.

I am angry because I fear that this wonderful person he has returned to being will suck me in and make me happy again only to abandon me and leave me in a battered heap because the allure of drinking is too great.

I am angry because I fear that I will never actually know and trust myself again or anyone else.

I am angry with myself because I didn't leave. And now I am in this place, tied together, but disconnected; partnered, but seperate; loving, but without love...

So, I take one day at a time. I am guarded. I wait.

Nobody likes me Everybody Hates me I think I'll Go Eat Worms

So I'm feeling lonely and un-lov-ed. I had a brief, small, hiatus and now nobody comments on my blog no more. I'm wounded. Of course, the only people that commented on my blog are this hella cool gang o folk out in SanFan whose blogs I have stumbled upon. They are all buds and I am an interloper...I like that word, interloper....rolls off the tongue, but I digress..

so this is a shout out to all who used to read/comment on my blog...hello, I am back...not dead, not fallen off the face of the earth, still experiencing random acts of lunacy....

like, hearing the weekend sexcapades of one of my students in class each Tuesday...

or getting head-butted in the nose by my dog on Saturday....still hurts, at least I didn't get a black eye from it...although, at least then I would have something to show for my headaches....

or observing the fact that the only people who visit my students during class are boys....

or like the fact that I have noticed that I am a spider-magnet - seriously, no matter where I am or what I am doing, some little or sometimes not so little spider finds it's way onto me...they are kind of cute, but it's sometimes startling...especially when they are fuzzy or not little....

I end now with this goal...no more hiatuses, lest you all think I truly have fallen of the earth or some other tragedy has befallen me....