Dawn Is Me

I’m probably not in the best place to be writing about healing between the genders.

That was my first thought when I started out to ponder this month’s Women on the Verge theme.

I’m just about six months out from finalizing my divorce. At this point, I’m sad and lonely and scared. I’m not sure that I have anything to say about healing; I’m not sure I remember what it feels like. In my current circumstances, it would probably be fairly easy to refuse to say anything positive about him, in particular, or about men, in general.

But if I stop to really think about it, I find myself wondering … what’s to heal?

As odd as it sounds, I was with a guy who wanted to stay married to me without being required to have an actual relationship with me. But I’m not angry with him about that, I guess because I haven’t taken it on. Once I understood that was the lay of the land, I realized almost immediately that was his issue and not my fault.

Even now, my sorrow and fear have nothing to do with him. Instead, I’m realizing how long I’ve been alone, even in this marriage. And I’m wondering if I’m going to be alone all my life.

That’s what mating is supposed to help us deal with, isn’t it? The fact is that we are alone when we are born and we are alone when we die. It’s the being alone part that makes both those experiences so terrifying, and that terror is a big part of what drives us to avoid solitude in between.

I don’t want to be alone, I readily admit it. This what I have in common with every single man, every widower, every divorced man in the world, up to and including my own ex-husband. We are all human, are we not? And we all crave that very special intimacy-tinged-with-sex that is the recipe for mating.

(Here I hesitate. I call it ‘mating’ for want of a better single-word [I don't want to use 'marriage'], even as I realize it makes me sound like I’m writing a script for one of those Nature movies. “And the male warily approaches the female to see if she is open to mating … .”)

And then, too, when I reach into my heart in search of less painful gender-related stuff, I encounter another kind of intimacy. That is because I have sons.

These are the only two men in the world who have drunk from my breasts. I bore them both of my body and I share with them the kind of physical intimacy that can only come from being among that rare set of individuals whose diapers I once changed and who were once allowed to throw up on me without fear of reprisal.

And the funny thing is that it is in the nature of the relationship between a mother and her children that healing will one day be necessary there, too.

I don’t know yet what I’ve done but I’m sure I’ve done something for which I will be called upon to apologize to one or both of my young men. I’m not perfect and I’m pretty sure I’m not going to get both these guys to adulthood without having screwed up somewhere. And that’s okay. Experience tells me that, as long as I am willing to apologize and own my faults, that healing will be possible.

That is what my own mom taught me, you know. It’s difficult to forgive somebody when they greet your injury with blame and derision instead of validation and comfort … and a genuine apology.

And maybe, if I step back from the personal to look at the big picture, that is what I can contribute to this conversation. The knowledge that real healing of any kind begins with a non-vengeful statement of injury, on the one hand, and a non-manipulative admission of responsibility, on the other.

“You did that. It hurt me.”

“I did? I’m so sorry! I won’t do that again.”

It’s nowhere near as easy to do as it sounds. Hell, it’s not even especially easy to write.

But this writing is good for me. I cry. When I cry, I am free.

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I AM A WOMAN ON THE VERGE

Healing Between The Genders is our theme for June. Please join in the conversation by joining WomenontheVerge.net, on Twitter @WomenontheVerge, on Facebook or by listening and chatting on our monthly radio show where I am a panelist. Join us for a fun and intriguing conversation on our monthly theme on June 15th from noon-1pm ET on BlogTalkRadio.com/womenontheverge.

I live in a toilet.

Don’t misunderstand. I haven’t always lived in a toilet and, in fact, this house was not one when we moved into it.

It’s just that animals have been introduced into my house. I don’t mean the cats or the fish or the hamsters. I mean the rabbit.

My spouse has a rabbit. He is a doting parent and so he lets the rabbit run free in the house. Those of us with office space in the living room have more or less kept the critter confined to the kitchen and the dining room … but that, in some ways, just makes it worse.

After all, I have to cook in there and my family has to eat in there.

As far as I know, it’s not possible to housebreak a rabbit. They just go wherever they are. My husband does not appear to object to the fact that our kitchen and living room resemble the bottom of a rabbit cage. It doesn’t seem to bother him at all … possibly because he spends so much of his time in his office.

You know what’s really sad? In this state, rabbit poop is not grounds for divorce. And doesn’t that just suck?

Gino turns 50 today. (Happy birthday, sweetie!) He celebrates by visiting the Trough of Despond.

I recognize that there’s not much I can do about the peaks and valleys of his depression. He’s sought treatment. All I can do is wait.

Well, that and bake a birthday cake.

All that time we spent waiting for March and what’s the first thing Ma Nature does when it arrives? Why, only dump six or seven inches of snow on our hopeful little heads.

Ma has a great sense of humor.

The good news is that we’re scheduled for the Big Thaw this week, expecting temps to get all the way up into the 40s and 50s. Yayness!

Before you know it, I’ll be back to drinking my morning coffee on the front porch and wishing I had a laptop so I didn’t have to do my work indoors.