Wow. Just wow.

THIS completely blows me away.

Christmas eve cha-cha

Have you ever felt like you were on the precipice of something REALLY REALLY great?  I mean, REALLY amazing?  No?  Me either.  

But occasionally, I get these waves of feeling like no matter how craptastic everything else has been, whatever is coming up next can't or won't be as bad as what I've already been through.  Some of that is just my inherent optimism (frequently referred to by friends and family as my naïveté - but I know better), but some of it is me drawing on my personal experience and deciding not to repeat mistakes from the past.  At least, not the big ones.  

For example, it would be easy for me to say, "ok, that's it - no more relationships, no more men.  Only bad things have come of it in the past, especially lately".  But I honestly don't feel that way.  As much as having a relationship isn't actually a priority for me right now, I'm a smart enough person to know that what I fear and want to avoid isn't having another relationship - I just don't want to have the same BAD relationship(s) I had before.  

It's very challenging to do, but I'm also going to have to leave my fears and prejudices of the past where they belong - in the past.  It wouldn't be fair of me to presume that every man who crosses my path is a lying, sociopathic cheater (although past history would say odds are good.).  I wouldn't want a man holding things his ex-wife or ex-girlfriend did to him against me.  I'm not a cheater.  I'm not a nagging harpy.  I'm a good person who can bring a lot of joy and happiness into someone's life if they'll give me a chance, and I know that.  But I'm not going to try to sell anybody on it either.  They need to be open to that and ready for it, or it just won't happen.  And until someone I feel merits an opportunity with me feels the same, I'm just going to keep it to myself and keep getting better.  That's the beauty of NOT being in a relationship - nobody to report to but ME, and I can use all my time for self-improvement or just relaxing and enjoying myself.  And I fully intend to.

I'm framing this in the context of relationships, since that's what's been on my mind lately.  But the same can apply to friendships and jobs.  You don't stop working because you had a crappy job or two.  You don't stop making friends because some old ones let you down once.  You move forward, knowing now what you need to look for and what you are not willing to tolerate, and you don't settle for less than that this time around.  So you KNOW it's going to be better.

So on this Christmas eve, the precipice of something good - or at least better than what I accepted or settled for yesterday - rather than be sad I'm not with a significant other, I'm going to enjoy not being under the sullen shadow of somebody else's misery.  I'm going to enjoy time with my family and friends, and sleep well knowing that whatever is coming next will only happen if I choose to allow it.

Enjoy your holidays, my friends.  

 

unsettling

How do we know when 'good enough' is good enough?  We all have to compromise and occasionally settle for less than what we might actually want in our lives.  But how do you know when to draw the line?

Like, I *want* a big house with a pool.  The house I ended up falling in love with didn't have one, and I know it's not financially brilliant to pay to put one in.  So I settled, and it's ok.  I've never woken up angry or regretful that I don't have a swimming pool.  I basically couldn't afford one, and I've come to terms with that. 

When I go shopping, I *want* the perfect shoes.  High-heeled, yet super comfortable, sexy, edgy, but walkable.  Talk about a unicorn.  I haven't found that pair yet.  So I settle for "not too painful but very sexy" or "kinda cute but very comfortable", or if I'm really feeling vain and hopeless in my search for shoe perfection, I'll go for the, "sexy and completely unwalkable" variety and hope I can just mince around and perch on a barstool all night and look cute.  

So I settle all the time.  But when it comes to affairs of the heart, when do you settle?  And how is that different than compromising?

To "settle for" is defined by thefreedictionary.com as "to accept in spite of incomplete satisfaction."

"Compromise" is defined as "a settlement of differences in which each side makes concessions."

 

It looks to me like the difference is between either one party or two accepting less-than-desirable terms.  In relationships, we all know compromise is necessary.  I compromised all the time in my past relationships - probably too much.  But as a woman with a very strong personality, I am easily perceived as a steamroller (a.k.a. 'bitch') when I argue or debate to convince them of my way, because few men seem to be able to (or want to) go toe-to-toe with me in a debate.  Ironically, that's the one thing I crave the most in a partner.  One who isn't afraid of me and my strong opinions and solid arguments (ok, not all of them are solid, but I always think they are when I go into it...) and will stand his ground calmly and help me see if from his point of view.  I admire the hell out of someone who can do that.  And it has been done.  I was humbled and filled with admiration simultaneously when this last guy pointed out flaws in my interpretation of his communications.  WHAT!?  *I* am the Queen Communicator!  I couldn't possibly have misinterpreted or misunderstood a simple text message...oh shit.  I did.  And he called me out on it.  Strangely, I loved that.  Put me in my place, and made me feel like I finally had an equal.

As my last marriage started falling apart, I had noticed that his pattern in an argument would be to angrily express what he wanted, barely trying to understand why I wanted what I wanted, then throwing his hands in the air in defeat and then running away from the issue, completely abdicating his vote on the matter.  I was usually still struggling to understand his point of view as he was shutting down emotionally and avoiding me.  Then he would hold me 100% responsible for the outcome when the decision I was left to make alone didn't pan out perfectly.  Oh, and there would absolutely be some passive-aggressive retribution involved...the issue would ALWAYS come up later and I would pay for it, one way or the other.  I will definitely be more aware of the intimidation factor and my steamroller tendencies if I ever choose to have another relationship with someone who isn't a cat.  (That's a big 'if' right now.)  But I'd rather just find a man who has a pair and isn't afraid of a debate.  (Not a fight.  I hate fighting as much as the next person.  I believe evolved humans can debate and discuss and even disagree without escalating and getting heated and ugly.)

But in addition to compromising (or at least trying to) in my marriage, I also settled.  Was I aware I was settling in the beginning?  On some level, I'm sure I was.  I knew I'd always earn more money than him, but that's not a deal breaker for me.  I frankly don't care about somebody's salary or title.  BUT.  To put a finer point on it, did he even try to work up to his potential?  No.  He would settle for a 'just good enough for now' job every time and glom onto it instead of reaching higher.  I do understand this is part of the work ethos from his culture, so I'm not being judgmental about it, but I now know that this is something that bothers me on some level, and I can't change that.  I can't make a man want to work up to his potential, and I can't change the fact that I lose respect for him when he doesn't.  So I think I knew I was settling, but I was trying so hard to be 'fair' and 'nonjudgmental' that I buried it and tried to ignore it.  Ultimately, that is the very thing that undid us - when the economy shifted, and we moved to a depressed city, his current skill set did not enable him to have a decent income.  And despite my offers of support and encouragement, he never made any efforts to better himself (beyond talking about it) and get some education that would help him move upward.  His inability to provide for himself and his family corroded his ego to such a point that it completely fell apart and he resorted to doing things like cheating on me and disrespecting me in public to bolster that sore, crippled man-ego.  I, of course, won't tolerate that shit, so it's over. That drive to improve oneself has to come from the inside.  External factors, even love, won't make you do it.

What I wonder about is, did he know that I was settling for him?  He had to have, on some level.  Ultimately, how much can you trust the love coming from someone you know is lowering their standards and settling for you?  Doesn't that feel more like charity of some sort, or pity?  I would not be comfortable knowing that, if I were the charity case.  My pride wouldn't let me stay.  Maybe that was the root of our undoing.  He knew, and was never comfortable with it.  But that would have had to have been on a very sub-conscious level - this man is not very self-actualized (AT ALL), and doesn't look too deeply in the mirror, since he is (and apparently many others are) all too happy with what he sees on the surface.  It's a good theory though, I think. :::pats self on back:::

All of which leads me into my next (non)relationship and questions about compromise vs. settling.  I don't think either one of us would have been settling for the other in any way.  That's why it felt so electric - having someone of equal stature in life, neither of us would have to make excuses for the other for any reason.  I'd never have to explain for the umpteenth time to my family that I was still paying all the household bills because he couldn't get a good job because he had no education in this country and his English skills weren't as good as they should be.  I could argue a point with him and he would listen intently -- intensely, even -- then deliver his thoughts on the point usually in story form, via an anecdote of something that happened in his past.  He never shied away from telling me my point of view was limited or maybe even totally off-base.  I admired that.  I valued that.  I treasured that.  And now I miss that.  But back to my point.

We wouldn't have had a problem around 'settling', since we were on even ground.  But compromise seems to be where we fell down.  I wanted transparency and exclusivity.  He wanted all the emotional intimacy of a committed relationship - without the commitment part.  In order for us to have a compromise, we'd both be giving up what we wanted most.  I'd still have to tolerate the lack of transparency and lack of exclusivity - things that make me the most miserable.  He'd have to tolerate invasive-feeling questions, and a tether to only one woman.  Clearly both things he wasn't willing to do either.  So in our case, compromise just wasn't possible, which is why it's over, despite all of the good things we had going for us.  

So now I wonder (more frequently than I want to or should), is he settling for/with someone else?  Since he claimed he didn't want ANY commitments, I'll extrapolate that to his other relationships as well and not take it too personally (that's a lie, by the way, I'm totally taking it personally, as you can tell) and choose to believe he's not committing to HER either.  But she's still sticking around for it.  So...are they both settling?  Or compromising?  It's not my relationship, so it's none of my damn business, but my mind can't help but go there (to torture myself, of course) and wonder.  

If I knew the person I was seeing wanted something else, something more, but I was only willing to feed them the bare breadcrumbs of a relationship, just enough to keep them coming back for more - would I respect them and truly want them in my life if I knew they were dysfunctional enough to accept that kind of treatment?  Me, personally?  Absolutely not.  It reeks of desperation.  But I guess it depends on what they want from each other.  That's something I try NOT to think about too much, but apparently that dynamic is still working for them to some extent.  They both get something out of each other that apparently is 'enough' for right now.  That worked for us for a while too, but as my other posts will attest, it turned into a whole other thing that kind of took over and made 'enough' into 'not nearly enough', for me anyway.  And I had to walk (or rather, stagger) away, although looking back frequently through a haze of tears and runny mascara to see if he's chasing after me.  Which he isn't.

I cried over it again as recently as yesterday.  Of course, I also ripped the scab off again (yeah, I know.  Cut it out, asshole. I'm working on it.  Made it 19 whole days of radio silence this time, I'm improving.) and opened a dialogue.  My bad. But the dynamic is still the same.  He openly tells me he misses me.  Which is validating, but painful.  I miss him.  We miss each other.  This whole thing is stupid.  But until the pain of remaining the same outweighs the pain of change, we'll remain in this emotional mexican standoff, just missing each other and enduring it.

Either I have to compromise and tolerate a man who is a mystery and won't commit, or he has to compromise and limit himself to one woman and be honest about everything. 

Apparently, neither one of us feels like the 'good' the other brings to the relationship outweighs the 'bad' that those changes require of us.  So there is no relationship.

In the meantime, I've holstered my virtual gun, I've turned my back on the whole thing and am no longer hopeful that he'll be the one to compromise.  I know I can't, so why should I think he can?  Even if to me, my terms seem more reasonable than his. But that's because they're MY terms.  Just like when I dirty the kitchen, it's not THAT dirty, because it's MY dirt.  When somebody else sullies my countertops, I'm all put out and huffy because it's OPD - Other People's Dirt, which everyone knows is dirtier than your own dirt.   I'm sure he feels the same way, that I'm being completely unreasonable in choosing nothing with him over the something we used to have, and that what I'm asking for is not in his repertoire or is just a deal-breaker that he knows will make him miserable.  And I don't want that.  No temporary emotional high is worth knowing that you're breaking a man to get it.  Because a broken man will never be a happy man, and you always pay a price in the end. 

In a very weird way, this reminds me of the story of the gift of the magi. We'd both be sacrificing what we value most to give each other something that the other then cannot use - our broken, over-compromised selves.  Not really a gift at all.

Speaking of gifts, I heard a rumor there's a holiday (rapidly) approaching.  Maybe I should stop all this reflection on something I can't change, and make a dent in my Christmas preparations.  Not feeling festive just yet, but that always changes when the plane lands in freezing-cold Pittsburgh where family awaits with good food and even better gifts.  This year will be my first Christmas not having a significant other in my life, I think for about 10 years.  It's going to feel strange and maybe a little hollow, but at least I won't have the dark spectre of misery that followed me the past 6 years there to ruin it as usual.  So I'll make the best of it.

 

  

*le sigh*

Yes, that's me.  Pixellated almost to the point of abstraction, which is how I feel right now.  Less than my normal sharp-focus, well-lit, on-the-ball self.  I have a fabulous coworker who is a cartoonist by hobby (and a very good, funny one) who has informed me I'm his next subject.  I can't wait - I know there's plenty of good comedy material in me (I know because he showed me the list he's been making), and I've always wanted to be rendered into cartoon form, especially if it involves giving me super-powers.  

But I'm not feeling so super just now, and I'm irritated that I don't know exactly why.  Or maybe it's more accurate to say that it's just an overwhelming feeling of "meh", and considering what many others I know are struggling with, I feel like a jackhole for still having a few toes trailing along in that huge pool of self-pity I've been struggling to pull my waterlogged self out of.  I'm the first person to tell a struggling friend "hey, be gentle with yourself, you wouldn't let anybody else talk to you the way you're talking to yourself right now!", but I'm total shit at taking my own excellent advice, and there's nobody in my face to tell me to cut it the fuck out and get my shit together, I have a million things to be grateful for.  And I am grateful.  But 'grateful' doesn't automatically cancel out 'sad'.  I can be both.  

I learned this morning that a friend who has already battled cancer once is facing yet another battle.  Very sobering news.  Yet he still managed to make a few jokes and got me to laugh, as if he needed to ease the blow of my hearing about his diagnosis.  For ME, not for him.  That's very selfless, and shows a tremendous strength of character that I admire.  So of course, the JC that comes from generations of stoic Austrian women who never kvetched about their ills even when they had every right to wants to kick my sad little self right in the nads and shout (in a heavy Austrian accent, of course), "VAT IS YOUR PROBLEM?  NUSSING!  DERE IS NUSSING DE MATTER VIT YOU!  STOP CRYING LIKE BABY!"  Because that is how my inner Austrian rules.  She's a tough bitch.  No-nonsense.  I'm disinclined to fuck with her, she could mess my shit up real good.

But even knowing that friends are facing very real life-and-death battles, and getting a drill-sergeant-esque dressing down from my inner Helga hasn't bolstered my spirits.  And why should it?  These aren't good things, or fun things.  Knowing a friend of mine is facing another major battle saddens me.  And I don't like getting yelled at, even just from myself.  I only retreat and get sullen, especially if they're right.  Which of course, she is.  (If they're wrong, I get all kinds of unstoppably sassy and in-yo-face.)  I KNOW I have a million things to be happy about and grateful for, and I usually am in that place, sitting on top of the world in the little seat I carved out for myself (with a lot of help from family and friends and mentors), just enjoying the view and smiling down upon my little fiefdom while petting a cat in my lap.

Right now, there's some clouds blocking my view and they just won't seem to clear up and get the hell out of the way.  The misty leftovers of what a month ago was a complete thunderstorm is still blocking out the sun.  The shine has worn off of a lot of things I usually look to when I want to cheer myself up.  I feel like the shine has worn off of ME a little bit.  Just a few months ago I was working hard towards my fitness goals and feeling and looking good, my skin was clear, and I had somebody other than myself to try to impress and notice all the changes.  Someone who wanted to see what I looked like every day.  Now, I'm still working hard towards my fitness goals, but I'm feeling like a rusty tin man.  Tendonitis has flared up, along with my shin splints.  I feel bloated and lumpy and like I'm gaining weight again despite diet and extreme amounts of exercise.  Unwelcome aches and pains are back, and I don't feel like going to my regular massage place and having to small talk with someone I have no connection with for two hours just to get my kinks worked out.  My skin looks dull and is once again breaking out, which is how I wear my stress.  Even my hair isn't cooperating.  Maybe it's the lack of human touch.  I don't know.

I feel disassociated, untethered, like the sum of my parts isn't just NOT more than the whole, but isn't even the whole right now.  I'm coming up short.  Maybe it's the eerily silent phone, and my coming to terms with "if he wanted you in his life, you'd be there." Ok, that just made my eyes well up, so I must be onto something.  So I guess this is just more of the same, although most of my anger is gone now and I'm just left with the hollow sadness that I guess some people call 'loneliness'.  I'm not a person who likes to be around people all the time.  Even most of the time.  I actually like to be alone, and have never felt like I needed constant external stimulation or validation to get through life.  So this is a foreign and extremely unwelcome feeling for me to have.

After having someone seem to be so interested in me and my life, suddenly having no one in that space has left a spooky echo and a feeling of incompleteness that I am not comfortable with.  And it pisses me off that I feel that way, because I have never needed somebody else to validate who I am.  So why do I feel that way now?

I'm just going to chalk it up to a bunch of cosmic stuff.  Mercury, asshole of a planet that he is, is still in retrograde.  I'm probably also having a low biorhythm day.  Even my horoscope was shitty, and the horoscope of the person I'm missing only made it worse. (No, I don't usually read it, but of course it caught my eye today, of all days.)  "There is someone who needs to hear just how much you care.  This person has been longing to know how you feel...this person is in need of some reassurance.  Reach out and show how much your friend or lover means to you.  This could be the beginning of a really wonderful relationship."  AAAARRRRRGH.  I actually raised my eyebrows and was surprised at how accurate it was...until I got to the "friend or lover" part.  Once again a reminder that I'm neither of these things to this person anymore, and he'll most likely be reaching out to the one who now IS.  Another sharp stick in my already watery red eyes...Oh well.

The good news (because society says "stop being negative!", "Count your positives!", and that old favorite, "Smile!"  I hate society.) is that I'm going to be busy all day and on a military base where I can't have my phone or computer with me. So at least I won't be hearing all that silence coming from my phone.  See?  I can be positive.

SuperJC out.

      

so they say

Also, this.  (It's a song - if you're at work, put on your headphones and crank it.)

just kickin' a can

In my ongoing quest to 'get my shit together' before I get even older and more physically broken-down, I have been consulting an Osteopath about the seemingly unending mystery neck/back/shoulder pain I've been having for about the past 6 months.  If I had to name it, I'd call it "Acute Emotional Onset Extreme Tension" or somesuch.  As my excellent name for it hints, it seems to reach its peak when I'm under extreme emotional stress.  Which has happened twice in the past 6 months, and almost rendered me useless both times.  Highly inconvenient, when one is trying not to mope, yet is almost confined to the bed from extreme, untouchable muscle pain and unable to even turn one's head.  Anyway, that's doing much better (for now), so on to my actual point of this post - my visit with this doctor this morning turned out to be about something else completely.  

This doctor is very thorough - almost alarmingly so, especially since he has a blood pressure machine that is CONVINCED I have high blood pressure.  Every other single place I've had my blood pressure taken in my LIFE has reflected either normal or low blood pressure.  I swear his getup is rigged to give him justification to prescribe unnecessary tests.  So far, this alleged high blood pressure (that I totally don't have) has caused him to order a full workup blood test that revealed I'm actually totally healthy as far as my blood is concerned.  But this morning, in my bloodwork follow-up visit, he was listening to my lungs and heart, and asked me if I knew I had a little bit of a heart murmur.  

Heart murmur? 

Aye, que no.

First of all, I'm 41, and have never been told by a single doctor that I have a heart murmur.  So this is a new thing, as far as I know.  And I have seen a LOT of doctors this year.  Here's why I know it can't possibly be true.  If my heart had anything to say, it would not merely 'murmur' it.  It would shout it.  With a bullhorn, probably.  And would use my body cavity for further amplification.  

But here's my theory:  it is tired.  It has exhausted itself this year with disappointment, betrayal, false hope, and ultimately, getting broken.  So while I highly doubt my heart is even capable of something as understated as a mere murmur, I could conceive of it having completely spent its little muscular self throwing temper tantrums, kicking and screaming like an angry toddler until there just wasn't much left.  So now, after the storm, and after the breaking, and the stitches, it's just kinda tired and leaky and cranky, like an old cracked tire with dry rot.  Half-assed heart.  And its probably muttering under its breath.  Epithets like, "...such and such and blah blah blah NO COMMITMENT blah blah blah UNFAIR blah blah ALIMONY blah blah blah" while making nasty faces as it imitates those it mocks.  If it had feet, it would be kicking tin cans in seedy, darkened alleys just to make the scene complete.   

The good news is it doesn't always feel like kicking cans and mocking people anymore.  Those feelings are actually pretty rare these days.  I've even experienced some pretty spectacular unexpected moments of joy lately.  Amazing, uplifting house music.  Good friends.  Purring kitty cats.  Sunshine.  Those things still work on me, and every little bit counts and they are adding up to more positivity than negativity overall these days, which is good.  And overdue.


Like some of my other seemingly psychosomatic ailments, hopefully it will also heal itself  and go away when it has no more cans to kick down the alley.

I'll let the doc think what he wants and order the ultrasound or other probably completely unnecessary test to actually see how serious it is (chances are it probably isn't serious at all, its very common), but I know it's not really a heart murmur.  It's a heart mutter.  

in other words

"When you left, I was not lonely anymore.
It was a relief. Because there was nothing to think of as not being mine. " 

Tet Gallardo said it better than I ever could have, so I won't re-hash it here, I'll just let you enjoy her much more succinct, penetrating words.

I'll be over here in the meantime, enjoying that lack of stress over not having all of something I thought I wanted.

thank you sir, may I have another?

As humans, it is part of our nature to try to avoid things that hurt, and to seek out things that feel good.  Lab rat behavior confirms that we aren't the only species that operate on this principle.  Pain recognition is a warning system that our bodies have evolved to tell us things like, "don't touch that hot stove"  when receiving a burn, or "those berries aren't good for you" when you feel sick after eating them.  I would say we are 'hard-wired' to avoid pain, but actually...we aren't.

We are 'wired' with a nervous system to detect pain.  But the interpretation of said stimulus is largely up to the software that is our brain.  Our brains choose to interpret the signal as something unpleasant - or not.  Sometimes the signal is interrupted between the nervous system and the brain, and never gets acknowledged or interpreted (ever take an opiate-based pain pill?  It blocks the signal.  Incredible stuff.).  Sometimes, an individual can choose to observe the stimulus from a detached position and decide to interpret it as something other than unpleasant, even choosing to derive pleasure from something others interpret as pain.  Hence, masochism.

Obviously, this system can serve us well and help us avoid damaging our bodies unnecessarily.  But when pain is necessary, does it always serve us to let our lower, autonomic self drive the bus down our typical path of pain avoidance?

A good analogy is dentistry, which is what I am facing today.  Nobody (well not *many* people anyway) actually enjoys it. We all know we have to do it, or else pay the consequences later - bad teeth, less-than-stellar smiles, pain from cavities.  So even though we KNOW it's going to be unpleasant - loud drilling, expense, shots, numbing, pulling, and sometimes even worse...we go anyway.  We dread it, we may put it off, drag our feet, but ultimately, we go.  Most of us, that is.  I do have a number of (adult) friends who have practically made a career out of dentistry avoidance because of the sheer unpleasantness, and for whom it is actually quite traumatic to go when it is time.  For them, 'time' to go is defined by when the pain of NOT going outweighs their fear of the potential pain and discomfort they are going to experience in The Chair.  And I guess that's what it comes down to for each of us, every day, when deciding exactly how much pain (of any kind) we are willing to tolerate.

I used to be one of those dentistry-avoidance people.  I remember as a child fearing the semi-annual visits to Dr. Shaw, the family dentist.  I'm pretty sure Nurse Ratched was his dental technician, and that she dreamed at night of carving up young people's gums with sharp instruments.  (And lived her dream daily, especially when I was in The Chair.)  As a young adult, there were many years that for both financial and anxiety-related reasons, I did not sit in The Chair.  But eventually, my inferior enamel and knowledge that I needed to do the maintenance now or pay the piper later kicked in, and I begrudgingly made the necessary appointment and faced the music (of the drill).  I was always proud of myself for doing this, knowing how much I dreaded it and how much anxiety novocaine shots used to give me as a child.  (I would literally have nightmares about them - sometimes having near-panic symptoms on my way to the office, in the backseat of my parents car with a runaway heartbeat and shallow breathing, panting like a dog.)

These people that choose not to go as adults for anxiety reasons are basically choosing comfort and the risk of the unknown vs. the known pain of The Chair.  They are also probably demonizing the dentist more than necessary.  He's not really a sadist, he's just there to keep your teeth healthy.  They are choosing to allow their brain to interpret all of those pain signals as threatening and worth avoiding at all costs.  I would call this a low pain threshold, mixed in with some unchecked level of extreme anxiety.  If you examine other areas of their life, I would gamble that you'll see conflict- or pain-avoidant behavior in other areas too.  It may even manifest as passive-aggressive behavior, where they avoid confrontation of any sort (which their anxious brain interprets as "danger! danger! run!"), and instead express their dissatisfaction by simply removing themselves from the situation and grumbling under their breath, or 'paying back' the person they have a problem with in some less obvious way.  (I experienced many paybacks from passive-aggressive husbands - yes, plural - who couldn't handle my up-front way of dealing with confrontation.  Basically, I would confront them with some important but possibly painful  topic, and they would squirm and evade and deny, but eventually would pay me back for that perceived humiliation (pain) by cheating on me or disrespecting me on some other level to make them feel vindicated and like they got 'even'.  It's extremely cowardly.)

Today, I have chosen to face The Chair voluntarily for a cosmetic improvement.  I have tetracycline staining on my two front teeth - I have had this my whole life.  I looked like a 2-pack a day smoker by the time I was 10.  My parents, recognizing my embarrassment and reluctance to smile because of it, had Dr. Shaw apply topical bonding to those teeth to cover the worst of the staining.  It did the trick for many years, and I all but forgot about the self-conscious smile I had in elementary school.  Some years ago, a dentist brought it to my attention that the bonding and my teeth in general were less than Chiclet white (the standard in Miami, where I was living at the time), and why didn't I do something about it?  Sounded like a good idea, that bonding had been applied and re-applied over the years and wasn't holding so well any more anyway.  So I invested in two veneers.  And I do mean invest.  Since it was a cosmetic application, insurance doesn't help much. But I felt it was worth it.  I do work in a customer-facing role, and smiling can be a big part of my job sometimes, as I've been told I look too intimidating when I'm *not* smiling.  So this Miami dentist injected me with copious amount of Novocaine (imagine getting multiple shots right above your two front teeth. Yeah.), ground down my front two teeth to little nubs, made a temp veneer which I wore for a week, then removed it and put the permanent veneers on.  When I say 'veneer', I'm sure many of you are picturing a thin coating of enamel, perfectly translucent and molded to the exact shape my original teeth had been (which quite frankly, I liked - it was the original color I had an issue with).  That is the basic idea behind veneers.  What I received instead was more of a crown.  Opaque, not-well-matched to my other teeth, larger-than-before protuberances that refused to let my lips close normally, turning me into a bad Bugs Bunny imitation.  I cried for DAYS before mustering up the nerve to return to the dentist and inform him that I was not at all happy about what he did to my smile, which was now threatening to not just strike, but completely run away, never to return.

As has been the sad experience with several other dentists in my past, even though I approached the situation carefully, calmly, and professionally, his ego took charge and reacted negatively.  I had made the appointment, telling the receptionist I wanted to discuss the veneers with the dentist.  I calmly informed him that the color match DIDN'T (match), and that if he reviewed my 'before' pictures, I was most certainly NOT buck-toothed prior to the veneering process.  I showed him how my lips no longer closed normally while at rest, and how unsettling and unattractive this was for me.  He acted put-out and exasperated.  As if I was just being an unreasonable child, after paying thousands (ok, maybe hundreds) for his services, I had no right not to LOVE the result I had received.

His 'solution' was basically to shave down the profile of the most offending veneer (the left one) and reprimand me.  Over what, I have no idea, but I felt reprimanded.  Red-faced and upset, I left his office, still unsatisfied.  A few short weeks later, that veneer cracked - while I was in California, no less.  I had to see Dr. Ego one more time to allow him to GLUE the cracked corner back together.  I was once again chastised (surely I had been chewing on rocks or somesuch), so this time I left, never to return.  Put him on the pile with Dr. Shaw, whose ego and shitty chairside manner of thinly disguised misogyny also eventually chased me out of his practice.  

Cut to 5 years later, I'm living in Jacksonville, still fighting my way out of a divorce, recovering from a recently broken heart, and on a MAJOR self-improvement kick.  I have stopped accepting "good enough" from myself and everybody around me.  My body hurts, but I still work out about 5-6 days a week.  I choose the pain over the alternative - staying the same, unhappy, overweight JC I had been for years.  I ended my last (non) relationship because it was not as fulfilling to my heart as I know I needed it to be and deserve, even though the pain of doing it was SO intolerable that I had to ply myself with alcohol (never a good tactic, by the way) just to work up the nerve to get myself there to do it.  But I did it.  I pulled the rug out from under my own feet, causing my heart so much pain.  That was exactly one month ago today.  And here I am, recovering from that pain, now voluntarily marching forward into yet another painful experience.  I am going to have these two inferior, non-matching, protruding veneers chiseled out of my head this morning, have the two neighboring teeth ground down to nubs as well, and have four (purportedly) glossy, perfect, translucent modern veneers applied to my front four teeth, thereby fixing my 'good enough' cracked unmatching smile into what is hopefully a beautiful, normal-looking smile. 

Do I need to experience this pain?  Probably not.  Although eventually that cracked corner is sure to come off again if I don't, exposing my sad, sensitive little nubbin of a toothlet underneath and making me look all kinds of hillbilly.  I don't want to live with that risk, and I'm tired of being just 'good enough'.  I want to push myself beyond, achieve something more (even it if is vain and shallow in this case), despite the pain required to get there.  My wallet is sure to be hurting after this as well, but the pain and discomfort and money and risk are all the price I'm willing to pay to take a step up to the next level.

It's like anything in life though.  Dentistry can be applied as metaphor to relationships.  Do you take the leap?  Risk your just-ok smile for one that could possibly be more expensive (taking more time, energy, effort,) and potentially end up worse (more broken hearted than the last time, when it ends)?  Or does your fear of The Chair and your past negative experiences in it keep you cowering at home with your 'good enough' teeth?   

I guess when you boil it all down, I am a risk-taker.  I put it out there.  I don't hold back.  I gamble.  Not compulsively, mind  you.  I weigh the risks.  I'm a Libra, after all...that's what we do.  Put the potential negatives on one side of our scales (risk, cost, effort, pain) vs. potential positives (LOVE! HAPPINESS! FULFILLMENT!) on the other.  I am willing to go through the pain of change (and change, even good change, is always painful) in order to have just a shot at those positives.  I understand when people aren't willing to, though.  I don't always agree with them.  Sometimes I pity them.  They are just more financially or emotionally conservative than I am.  Hell, they'll probably retire with a lot more money in the bank than I will, and may suffer a lot less heartbreak along the way.  But I'm choosing to take the risk, bet it all on black, and see what happens on the other side of the changes.  It could be awesome.  Because isn't that what life is about - taking a chance, despite the pain?

phoenician cycle

So, at first, I was like

And for a while I was kinda

But now, I'm all

That's all I have to say about that.  Finally.