By Maria Padhila
When I was 16, I read an Erica Jong novel called How to Save Your Own Life — and it worked. I was being bullied, threatened, mean-girled, catholicized, slut-shamed, queer-shamed, and even mocked and derided for being an artist, writer and actress.
At my part-time waitress job, harassment from management (including the random ass-squeeze) and rudeness from customers (including the random ass-squeeze) were yawningly normal.
The only places I felt safe were on stage, at my weekly art class, and at the bookstore at the mall during my waitress breaks. There were a lot of books that saved me there, but that was the biggest one.
It starred a poet who made a lot of mistakes, threw herself into a lot of bizarre and funny situations with a lot of odd characters, was betrayed and let down by love and lovers, had a dear friend kill herself, and still, she saved her own life. The secret to the save came from a secret message her poet friend had written to her in a blank notebook: “By being a fool.”
At one point, she does the old foolish thing many of us know: ask the gods for something, along with the promise that she’ll never ask for anything again. But she quickly catches herself, and admits that she lied. “I’ll probably ask for lots of things,” she says.
We often seem to think that kind of bargain will work, that unkeepable promise never to ask for anything again. Asking for the kind of life and relationship you want most, uncovering and admitting these kinds of secrets, is still the toughest request most of us can make. I wonder how many, like me, tried to strike this same kind of bargain: If I come out as queer, reveal my kink, ask to get married — whatever it is you most want — I promise never to ask for anything again.
I do find my salvation in being a fool, a trickster, the coyote who steals the fire and doesn’t get much more for it himself but a singed tail, the wrath of the gods, and a lot of laughs from the humans, followed by getting kicked out of town. That’s the life of many artists or creative people of any stripe, and I’ve almost accepted that.
But I also went and struck that fool’s bargain. I’m looking at almost 20 years since I’ve been with Isaac, 15 years of legal marriage, five years since I started asking about living as my polyamorous self, four years since I met Chris, and three and a half since I became the V here. And I realize now that, shit, I am really OLD. No, the big realization is that on some level, I said to the gods, to Isaac, and to Chris: If you “give” me this, I’ll never ask for anything again.
And after this past year, I have got one burned tail, all right. Circumstances conspired to make me break that vow: I have been asking those guys for all manner of things.
Just the other night, I asked Isaac to bring me the heat pack, even though I could have limped up and gotten it myself. I’ve thrown myself into regular running and yoga again, and it’s made me sore as hell. I know the difference between the protests of unused muscles and a true injury, but it still sets up a sort of body anxiety that puts me on edge. Will I be able to come back? Did I do myself some real damage this time? But pushing through the pain is the only way I know to get that feeling of everything really working again.
That hour or so was the year in miniature — me being in one kind of pain or another, and needing to ask for help, for something more, and debating with myself whether I should. It mostly stems from my working days being a kind of grotesque mirror, a backwards version of my relationship life: the competitive work environment is such that not a whisper of weakness can be revealed, not a question can be asked, not a back can be turned. It’s kind of the intellectual and emotional equivalent of the ass-squeeze.
But in the world of relationship, we talk, we question, we constantly reveal ourselves and our weaknesses. Work has been bizarro world, and it took a toll.
The environment is such that one woman I used to work with spun herself into a serious auto-immune disease; I’m not saying the stress was the only reason, but it couldn’t have helped. In the weeks after she quit, she told me, she was so infected with the constant second-guessing and distrust of instinct and intellect that the work environment had hosted, that she would look at her dog and wonder if she should take her for a walk. For 30 minutes or so, she would debate this simple, absolutely necessary action with herself. (She is in better shape now and managing her illness.)
What really worries me is that I suspect this isn’t so isolated; I think many corporate work environments are set up to turn us into such poorly functioning humans. How else could we do this work, really?
The environment took its toll on me as well, setting up a monster storm of depression, aches and rashes that, if you’ve been reading for a while, you’ve heard quite enough about. Two weeks ago, I finally got a diagnosis: dematographism, a skin disorder that’s genetic but can be triggered by stress and hormones (which respond exquisitely to stress). It literally means “skin writing.” It means being allergic to touch. A waistband or an elastic sleeve can create an itchy welt that lasts for days; and every scratch is another form of pressure that creates more welts, and on and on.
I literally could not take the pressure. And I could barely stand anyone touching me. For about the past six months, that’s where I’ve been dwelling.
And the guys have been wonderful. I had to ask them for many things — help, compassion, time to myself, the license to let a lot of things go, time to rest. I haven’t beat it back yet, but just knowing what the problem is has given me at least something to laugh about. Noting the irony alone was enough to get me back into some sanity. I’m starting to get myself back, finally.
At one point I asked my dearest friend what I should do, and she suggested a very simple magical remedy. I couldn’t get anyone to stop asking me for more — more work, more time, more attention, more duties. I couldn’t control all the requests, and she recognized this. But, she said, try this: next time someone asks you for something, ask them to do something for you, too. It can be as simple as this — if they ask you to write a check, ask them to hand you a pen. Just make that gesture to restore the balance and shift the energy.
It was hard. I am so acutely aware that in asking to live as my heart wants, I was asking for something so huge in the eyes of the world that I felt I could never make it up to Isaac and Chris. But this attitude ultimately disrespected them — it implied that all this was being done simply to please me, as a chore on their part. It implies that they get nothing from this relationship — and that simply isn’t true. I know they benefit from this as well as I do, even if this is hard to believe. Being the hinge on the V can lead a person to believe that they are the most important element, the one on whom all things, literally, hinge. And that belief is an illusion, because each of us is a different, equal, unique, autonomous individual.
It’s not all about me. What a relief to come to that realization. It would be wonderful not to be forced by circumstance to have to come to it again and again, but that’s how life works.
I started to move again, to run and to stretch. I set myself the task to write a poem a day, as did many in a ritual during this month that America has declared National Poetry Month, a foolish ritual that can save your life. My concept and theme for the poems I’ve done this month has been, get this, the Inquisition: how to face the relentless questioning of one’s worth, one’s rights, one’s beliefs; and how to turn the questions around when one is trapped. How to question power.
In the end, my refusal to accept what we have as a given and accept that we will all ask for more on top of that is evidence of another kind of foolishness: the idea — one we’re relentlessly sold on — that once we have the relationship we want, it will fulfill all our needs. Wrong. Like the foolish poet said, I’m probably going to ask for lots more.
—————–
Have you tried the Planet Waves premium membership? Sign up for a six-month membership and receive weekly and monthly horoscopes by Eric Francis, plus more. Eric’s horoscopes offer perspectives on your relationships, family dynamics, career and creativity like no other horoscopes online.