At a Loss For Words Page 8

  Write in a diner.

  Write in a deli.

  Write in a coffee shop.

  Write in a laundromat.

  Write in a bus depot.

  Write in a train station.

  Write in an airport.

  Write in a church.

  Write in a cemetery.

  Write in a park with children playing all around.

  Write in the woods while leaning against a tree.

  Write in the dentist’s waiting room.

  Write in the backseat of your car.

  Write in bed.

  Write in your pajamas.

  Write in the nude.

  Write while standing on your head.

  I told you about an evening when I went out for dinner with my friends Lorraine and John, a long-married couple I’ve known for almost twenty years. It was a beautiful late August night. We sat on the courtyard patio of a popular downtown restaurant. I told you I had the sautéed lamb loin, not because I’m so keen on lamb (I do like it, but while eating it, must not think about the curly little fellows frolicking in fragrant meadows), but because it was done in a Middle Eastern style with an unusual salad of Israeli couscous and pistachios! I said, So of course I had to have it, and it was delicious!

  After dinner there was music, a local group playing a variety of medieval songs in different languages, with violin, cello, mandolin, bass viol, and even a hurdy-gurdy. I told you I loved the music. I told you I had a fabulous time.

  In truth, I’ve never been fond of medieval music, and I was sad all evening long because you weren’t there with us. Even Lorraine and John said how nice it would have been if we were a foursome.

  In my e-mail the next morning, I said, What made the evening so enjoyable was thinking how much you would have enjoyed it too, and knowing that I’d be telling you all about it today.

  I said, No matter what I’m doing, I’m always wishing I was doing it with you.

  Write about a time you were misunderstood.

  Write about a time you lost something important.

  Write about a time you didn’t say something that should have been said.

  Write about a time you said something that shouldn’t have been said.

  Write about a time you said yes.

  Write about a time you said no.

  Write about a time you got what you wanted.

  Write about a time you didn’t.

  I am thinking about how, early on in this, I told Kate that I wanted to share every little thing with you all the time, and I didn’t understand this insatiable need I now had to tell you everything: every thought that crossed my mind, every meal I ate, every boring and mundane thing I did in a day (from cleaning the oven after having not done so for two years to getting my hair cut to having my teeth cleaned to washing down the bathroom from ceiling to floor and every surface in between). Sometimes it was as if my life had become a story I was telling you, as if I were now living in a novel or a movie and narrating every movement I made for you and only you, my singular and spellbound audience.

  To Kate, I said, Sometimes this drives me crazy. Why is this happening? What’s wrong with me?

  And Kate said, gently, That’s just the nature of love: it makes you want to share your whole self with your loved one.

  I thought she must be right. In all that I told you, I was wanting you to see me, to hear me, to really know me for who I really am.

  I am thinking about how later, after another week of roller-coaster ups and downs, I told Michelle that all of this was making me feel sucky and weird. I said, Sometimes this drives me crazy. Why is this happening? What’s wrong with me?

  And Michelle said, not unkindly, That’s just the nature of love: it makes you feel all sucky and weird.

  I thought she must be wrong. At least I hoped she was.

  Now I think they were both right, my wise friends Kate and Michelle.

  In an e-mail written immediately after one of our marathon phone calls, I said, I love the way we talk! I love the way we’re both so eager to speak that sometimes we’re even talking over each other! I’m sure we’ll never run out of interesting things to share and discuss…I truly feel that we can say anything to each other…this is so special and rare.

  I said, It felt so good to laugh with you today. I think of you as a very calm person who is able to take things as they come. When I’m feeling rattled and alarmed and overwhelmed, just the sound of your sweet voice helps me get my balance back!

  I said, Sometimes it still surprises me how important our connection is to my overall sense of well-being and happiness. When we are able to communicate, I feel so uplifted and recharged. I can’t think of anything I enjoy as much as talking to you…okay, well, yes, maybe I can think of a couple of other things!

  I said, I am besotted. (Now there’s a delightful word that doesn’t get used nearly often enough!) If I were there, I’d track you down wherever you were and give you hugs and kisses every hour on the hour! You are my heart’s desire.

  I said, Let me love you forever. Let me take care of you and make you happy. Forever.

  You said, Yes, it was so wonderful to hear your voice, your thoughts, your ideas. What a precious thing we have! I so much appreciate your canny intuition. You are so good at coaxing my true feelings out of me. You are right that I have typically held back from sharing my emotions, and so this is a big departure for me and I appreciate it so much. The times I have been able to do this in the past are far and few between. I treasure the fact that we have this strong connection, and feelings for each other that transcend distance and time and that have lasted throughout the full extent of our adult lives. I do so very much appreciate having the privilege of what we share…in all its forms…ups downs sideways…etc. You have made my day, my night…and as time goes forward, my life…so much better…so much happier. Thank you.

  Later: I said, Isn’t it ironic that early on, we talked so often about how well we communicated? We were always congratulating ourselves on being able to talk so easily about anything and everything. But now you cannot find even five or ten minutes to give me a quick call or send me a note. I cannot help but think that if you really wanted to be in touch with me, you would be.

  You said, Things are coming down to the wire here…my days are now predominately locked into tending to the work at hand…

  I am thinking about how at first you said I was so wonderfully inquisitive, always asking questions, and how this was such an endearing and fascinating quality.

  Later: You stopped answering my questions, even the trivial ones about bowling, Ping-Pong, television, or what you had for lunch today.

  I complained about this, jokingly at first.

  You said, I will indeed try and get to the questions you’ve raised, but it may take me most of the week, to be honest. I am working furiously to meet some deadlines here today and tomorrow…

  When I began to complain with growing aggravation and ill-disguised anger, you said, In regards to responding to your questions…I want to do this very much…I have not had time…my boss is on holidays and I am holding down the fort…I am not ignoring you or avoiding anything…nor will I.

  Draw with sidewalk chalk in front of your house.

  Cut shapes out of construction paper.

  Get up and dance.

  Plant some flowers.

  Have a nap.

  Change your clothes.

  Shave your head.

  Light a candle.

  Say a prayer.

  Have another nap.

  You said you wanted to protect me.

  I said, I do not want to be protected. Not from you anyway.

  At the time, much as I protested against it, I found your desire to protect me rather endearing.

  Later: I found it aggravating and, eventually, insulting. I felt that you were treating me like a child who could not be expected to cope with reality.

  Now I think: The person you most wanted to protect was yourself.

&n
bsp; As things became increasingly difficult for me, on the advice of my friend Lorraine, I bought a book called Reinventing Your Life: The Breakthrough Program to End Negative Behavior…And Feel Great Again by Jeffrey E. Young and Janet S. Klosko. It is an interesting book that helps readers identify their own lifelong self-destructive patterns and then offers a variety of techniques to help change them. The book calls these negative behaviors “lifetraps.”

  According to the book, I most definitely have abandonment issues. It also seemed probable that, in addition to the Abandonment (“Please don’t leave me!”) Lifetrap, I might also be suffering from the Emotional Deprivation (“I will never get the love I need!”) Lifetrap, the Defectiveness (“I am not good enough!”) Lifetrap, and the Vulnerability (“Catastrophe is about to strike!”) Lifetrap. This was a lot of lifetraps to think about all at once, so I decided to focus on abandonment for starters.

  At the time I was reading this book, you were extremely bewildered by the problems I was having with anxiety and insecurity. I’d already told you that I’d never had much luck with love and romance.

  I said, This insecurity of mine is a wild beast that comes out of my past bad experiences in the love department, a nasty old demon that I thought I had conquered.

  I said, There’s really nothing you have said or done that has caused this. I generated it all on my own, and it has to do with my own issues, my feeling that I am not lovable.

  You did not seem to want to explore my insecurity any further. It seemed that you wanted to talk about other things: basketball, the Olympics, a horse you owned when you were a teenager, a funny e-mail you’d received from one of your colleagues.

  But, me being me, with my obsessive need to be understood (and my equally obsessive fear of being misunderstood), I couldn’t stop trying to explain myself and my own apparently puzzling behavior.

  I said, I don’t know what comes over me sometimes…a frisson of…je ne sais quoi! I think I need more time before I’ll actually be able to believe this isn’t all just a dream. I mean, really…you…me…together again after all these years? Sometimes it seems so unbelievable, too good to be true. Sometimes I think I must have made it all up!

  I told you about this book that Lorraine had recommended.

  I said, I think the book is right: I think I have abandonment issues.

  You said, Abandonment issues? Well, everybody has those!

  At the time, I laughed and said, Yes, of course, you’re right!

  Now I say: What the book doesn’t address is that, often enough, when a person suffering from the Abandonment Lifetrap is afraid she’s going to be abandoned, it is not necessarily a set of inappropriate feelings triggered by something innocuous and welling up from past bad experiences. Often enough, when a person suffering from the Abandonment Lifetrap is afraid she’s going to be abandoned, she is right.

  We were in a room at the luxury hotel once again. It was not the same room. Although I’d requested the same room when I

  made the reservation, they said they were unable to guarantee any specific room. So we were in a different room, same floor, across the hall, several doors down. This room, less expensive, was much smaller and less elegant than the other one. It overlooked the noisy street rather than the pretty courtyard. There was no chandelier this time, just a smoke detector on the ceiling with a tiny red light that blinked continuously. No blue velvet love seat, just two small armchairs on either side of a small round table. I chose not to take any of this as a sign.

  You’d said you would be there at one o’clock. You didn’t show up until five to three. For those two hours I had paced around the room talking to myself, crying intermittently, drinking Pepsi from the minibar, and smoking many many cigarettes while standing by the open window because I knew you would not appreciate the smell of smoke in the room if and when you eventually arrived. I obsessively watched the traffic below, searching for your car. I checked both the room phone and my cellphone a dozen times to be sure they were working. I called both Kate and Michelle but neither of them were home. I imagined that they were out somewhere together without me and I cried a bit with homesickness. I thought about calling Lorraine but decided against it, seeing as how she was the one who had most often warned me to be careful.

  When you finally got there, you apologized profusely and said you’d been delayed due to yet another meeting, called without warning right after lunch, and it had dragged on and on and interminably on, and you had not been able to call me and let me know you would be late.

  By the time you arrived, I was having a full-scale meltdown. In fact, this was the first time I’d allowed myself to break down in front of you. You brought me Kleenex. You took the plush white hotel bathrobe off the hook on the bathroom door and wrapped it around me although I was still fully clothed. I stepped into your arms. We lay down on the bed. You held me for a long time. We did not make love.

  A few hours later I had to go home.

  In my e-mail of the next morning, I said, It’s never hard for me to tell you how much I love you and how much you mean to me. But it was so very difficult to let down all my defenses like that and tell you how truly messed up I’ve been feeling. Your being late was more than I could bear on top of everything else. I’m still a bit shaky. I didn’t want it to be like this…I wanted it to be soft and lovely. I wanted to be always wise and smart and all those wonderful things you’ve said about me.

  I said, You were so right when you observed that I love order…also reliability, predictability, and routine. All these things make me feel safe and in control. For so many years I’ve stayed away from men because I was afraid of being hurt again. It is only because it was you that I allowed myself to take a chance and let my guard down again. I thought you would never hurt me.

  I said, For so many years I lived behind a wall, and right now I want to put that wall back up again. Right now I feel like my life has been thrown into total chaos and that is very frightening and upsetting for me.

  I said, Having now told you how bad I’ve been feeling, I worry that you’ll think less of me. I feel that everything has changed between us and our relationship has shifted yet again. Now you see a side of me that isn’t incredible and amazing and wonderful. Now you see that I too can be weak and needy and unable to cope on my own. This really bothers me!

  You said, I actually think more of you now, rather than less. In revealing the depth of your worries and emotions, you have become more real to me.

  You said, It is certainly natural that we suffer with a myriad of feelings and emotions that go up, down, and all around. Life sure is complex at times. But also highly interesting, challenging, and, hopefully, as positive as it can be. I think the best way to proceed is to honestly put forth our concerns and always talk things out together.

  You said, Please don’t put that wall back up again.

  I said, Although I’ve had some bad days recently, mostly I feel so very thankful for all of this love (your love!) that has come into my life at a time when I believed I would never feel love or be loved again. And so my dear soul mate, despite the difficulties, I have to say: I wouldn’t have missed it for the world!

  I said, I know I’ll never be the same again…and I’m glad!

  Your e-mails were always speckled with ellipses: sometimes the standard three dots…sometimes four, five, six, seven. At first I thought they were charming, your dot dot dots. When I told you this, you were a little embarrassed.

  You said, I confess that when I first started writing to you, I was very self-conscious about everything I wrote, the spelling, the grammar, the structure, the punctuation…because you are such an amazing writer. All of your letters are of publishable quality, you know! They are always so perfectly wonderful. Writing to you has improved my confidence about my own writing skills, which is something I have always worried about. When I was in university my essays always came back covered with red circles and arrows pointing out my grammatical mistakes. And even now, with all the reports
I have to write, I still have problems this way.

  You said, When I use those dots, it makes me feel more like we’re literally having a real conversation.

  I said, Please don’t be embarrassed or self-conscious. I love your dots! In them, there is breathing, sighing, thinking, smiling, laughing, teasing, stuttering, longing, hand-holding, hugging, sometimes just taking a drink of coffee, sometimes unshed tears, sometimes kissing, sometimes composing your thoughts or yourself…those dots are very versatile! Those dots are a punctuation revolution! So please don’t hold back…send me your thoughts…send me your dots!

  I even started using them quite often myself…those dots were like a spotted contagion between us.

  But later: They were maddening. I would stare and stare and stare at them, as if they were a kind of hieroglyphics or Morse code that I would be able to decipher eventually if only I tried hard enough. But trying to read between the dots was even more exasperating than trying to read between the lines, even more impossible than trying to make sense of those e-mails from strangers that are just long nonsensical lists of unconnected words. I would peer and peer and peer at your dots, trying to figure out all you weren’t saying, all you were withholding, all you were hiding, all the secrets you were keeping from me, all your sins of omission.

  Dot dot dot.

  Tennessee Williams once said that when you are going through a period of unhappiness, a broken heart, the loss of a loved one, or some other “disorder” in your life, then writing is the only refuge. (I found this quote while searching for the Steinem one.) I would like this to be true. I would like writing to be my refuge, my anchor, my salvation. Once, it was all of those things.

  But during the height (or the depth) of my misery, I couldn’t even read for more than twenty minutes at a stretch, let alone write anything other than more e-mails to you. I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t concentrate. The words flew around in circles on the page. I would read the same sentence over four or five times and still it wouldn’t make sense. By the time I reached the end of a page, I couldn’t remember what I’d read at the beginning. This must have been why my father had to give up reading as his Alzheimer’s progressed. The simplest story escaped me, and soon I’d find myself staring off into space or pacing around the house in a fever of anxiety and fear.