Loitering

And lo, it came to me then, that verily I am terrible at loitering.

Seriously.

I think there is a skill you learn when you are a teenager and don't want to go home, and I think the skill is that of loitering.

In my home town loitering was done around the square. On Friday and Saturday nights teenagers would get in their cars and in their friends' cars and drive around the square. Then they would drive out to the edge of town to the bowling alley, circle around and drive back to the square. They "cruised" until it was boring or they saw someone they wanted to hang out with and then they would go park on the square and loiter with more people than could fit in one car. (Sometimes this happened at a gas station on "the strip" or the bowling alley, but the square had a heck of a lot more parking spaces than anywhere else in town.)

I was a gigantic nerd/goody-two-shoes/stick-in-the-mud and I did this one time. In part because I lived in the country and wasn't in town on Friday or Saturday nights, in part because I didn't have a car, and in part because none of my friends really did this very often.

But I think that in missing out on this Scotland County right of passage I missed out on a valuable learned talent: How to just stand around.

I can't do it. I hate the random eye contact where I don't know what to say. I suck at small talk. I never know how to interject myself into a conversation that someone else is having, and above all this I have a very intense fear of being disliked or annoying people... which might be one of my most annoying traits, paradoxically.

I know how to look at my phone as if something very interesting is happening on it, but that is just a time-killer, not a connection-maker. I can hold a reasonable conversation with people. I can even yell out "Hippopotamus!" in a room full of people whom I all want to like me.

But when an event is over, if I don't have a reason I can't leave (aka riding with someone else) or a good friend to chat with, I'm screwed and I end up running away even when there are a few people who I would like to say hello to, or greet, or otherwise acknowledge.

This is why I'm so much better at online interaction than in person interaction. My feelings don't get hurt if someone makes a face at something I say online or ignores a facebook status and I can't just pick up from their body language when they really don't care for me.

I'm like the "True Life Tales of a Cinderella Time-Dud."

When it's over

It's one of those melancholy evenings. When I just want someone around. Unfortunately for me, I'm picky about who I want around.

One of the things that I really loved about marriage was that it didn't end. I hate it when things end.  I always have.

I hate it when a show is done for the night, and even more when you strike set and it's done forever. I hate it when everyone goes home, when everyone gets tired, when everyone falls asleep.

When you are married, it doesn't end. You can literally fall asleep while laughing. Then you just wake up and start laughing again.

Ok, it's not quite like that... but a little, it is.

Only mine ended.

And pretty often I still get the feeling. The feeling that I used to get after a show... when there was nowhere to go and the world was shut down... but I wasn't done.

I'm not done.

I mean I could go downtown to where I'm sure there are still people who are insanely drunk wandering about, but that isn't what I want... I just want to have a conversation. I want to laugh until I fall asleep.

I want to have my head on someone's shoulder and talk about really personal things and really stupid things while tracing his hand with my finger. Not looking at each other- except for his hand. Except for my finger following each knuckle.

Relationship Status

Today marks a big day: The day I changed my relationship status.

I've been thinking about it for a few weeks now.

Gone back and forth more times than I can count, consulted with several friends about it-- but today I took the plunge and changed my status from "widowed" to "single."

The thing is that I will always be a widow. For the rest of my life. But it's not my relationship status, anymore.

I will always be extra sensitive to cancer when I see it- in real life or just portrayed on television.

I will always miss Nathan.

I think Kara put it really well in an e-mail exchange we had about it- (I mentioned how terrible it would be if I started dating someone, changed my relationship status, and then we broke up):

"Change it to single.  That WOULD be horrible, "broke up with John Doe, back to being a widow...?" No.  You are a single window.  There are also categories of dating widow and married widow.  Your relationship with Nathan is a different category than all future relationships.  It's not Nathan or new guy.  It's always Nathan - you will always have been married to him, but that doesn't preclude other relationships.  Mark Zuckerburg needs to figure this shit out.  He should pay you to be his consultant on these matters."

Widow is not all that I am, and in relationship it is not all that I want.

"Single" means "available." It means "up for possibilities." It means "keeping my eyes open."

"Widowed" means "back the heck off-- I'm dealing here."

And while I think I'll always be dealing-- as anyone with pain and sorrow in their past does-- I don't want people to back off. I want people to come in.

I don't want to shove people away.

I want to hug them.

I want to bake them cookies and hear their life stories.

I dreamed a dream in time gone by...

I think I'm developing an earache.

I used to get them all the time when I was little and had to take really gross tasting medicine that was kept in the refrigerator. It was pink and tasted like "bubble gum." Haven't had one for quite some time now. Weird.

My brain confounds me sometimes. Why do I remember things like this??

Oh on a side note- You know how I made that post last time that was all sad about how that drunk guy didn't hit on me when he hit on the other girls??

Well, the next day I was in Wal-mart looking at the cake pans and this guy walks up behind me and as he's passing me says, "Man, you are very beautiful."

I looked up and around, but I was the only one in the aisle. I started to say thanks to his back. I got out, "Th-," before he turned back for a moment to say, "Your man is a real lucky guy."

Then he turned and kept walking as I actually got out, "Thank you!"

It was the most surreal experience, but completely wonderful. All I was doing was standing in a deserted aisle checking my phone. And like the guy was just there and gone again in 30 seconds. He kinda seemed like he was in a hurry, actually... It was like he just couldn't help but comment on it. Like I said- Wonderful.

I tried so hard today to get homework done and failed so hard at it. Tomorrow is going to be a heap-big-homework day.

Also my aunt Dawn sent me a card in the mail just cause she found it and it made her think of me... It was great... and the fact that there was a Starbucks card inside didn't hurt matters, any.

I've been going through my pictures on facebook and I saw a few I took of Nathan when I first got my digital camera... It's a really strange feeling. Like I see them and I love and miss him so much... but at the same time it doesn't even feel like it was my life. It still feels so much like a dream or a tv show or a movie... This delightful/ tragic story that happened to "me", but once removed. I can't help but wonder if that's all a coping mechanism or if it's always going to feel like a lovely dream I once had.

Being Fazed

Currently sporting my hair in Pocahontas style braids. This only happened *after* I came home for the night.

So last weekend during the drunken-ness, this guy kept asking Bailey if she knew how gorgeous she is.

And don't get me wrong-- she is, in fact, gorgeous. Then a little later he started complimenting a different girl on her looks.

There were three girls on the porch. He never said a word to me.

In fact, once when Bailey tried to steer him into complimenting me and he was obviously and awkwardly trying to come up with something to say I said, "Nah, it's ok. It's pretty clear he's not attracted to me."

Then I got the pity comment from one of the other guys, "No, it's just that he's so attracted to you that he can't even talk about it."

*sigh*

I'd like to say that I was unfazed.

I'd like to say that I haven't thought about it, since.

But the truth of the matter is I'm writing a blog about it. The truth of the matter is that it totally stung.

It probably makes me unenlightened, but a man's opinion of my looks matters to me.

Even when I know it shouldn't. Even when I barely know him. Even when I'm not attracted to him. 

I try to pretend like it doesn't get to me, because I know that so much of beauty is based on your self-confidence, but it's all an affectation.

I look at pictures of myself and wish that I could lose weight.... and wish that I didn't hate my profile... and wish that I was taller and less sturdily built.

And I know that almost every girl does the same thing.

I hate beauty sometimes.

Cause the truth is I actually think I have a lot of really good qualities going for me. But I forget all about them in a heartbeat, because one guy didn't drunkenly hit on me and it reminded me of how I'm never the girl who gets hit on.

And I've heard all the "It get's old" and "It's not all it's cracked up to be" lines before. And I totally believe it. I'm a pretty smart chick, I can easily see how it would get old/annoying.

Doesn't mean the opposite's not true, too.

And I guess that's the last reason why I hate it. Because I am smart and I know I should be above/beyond/past all that kind of shallow/ petty vapid-ness. Yet here I sit, wishing some drunk dude thought I was hot.

I'd say I should give up trying to be beautiful but I don't have the guts. I barely have the courage to wear my glasses in public.

The Compliment Huddle

Ok, stories that I promised- First off is the awkward one... though it's kinda hilarious.

So Bailey is one of the girls who I roomed with. I liked Bailey a lot. She was sitting between Patrick and I on Sat night at one point... and the subject of boyfriends and girlfriends came up and she asked Patrick about his girlfriend and then she asked me if I had a boyfriend. I said "No." But she could tell there was more to it, and I wasn't sure what to tell her so I started. "I..." and then I trailed off because I didn't know how to bring up Nathan. And then I looked at Patrick... and back at Bailey... and then back at Patrick, trying to figure out what to say... and then back at Bailey. But this point Bailey was giving me a weird look and I suddenly realized that it looked like I was trying to say that there was something between Patrick and I. So then I freaked out and just blurted the first thing that came to my head.

"I have a dead husband."

(Renée shakes her head at herself and puts her forehead in her hand.)

Yep. I really blurted it out just like that. And Bailey looked at me and said... "Are you for real?"

And I was like, "Yeah... I'm serious. It was cancer."

Oh Lawsie. You'd think after 20 months I'd be better at this. Nope. If anything I've gotten worse.

To her credit, Bailey took it like a trooper, and didn't freak out with the full force of my awkwardness.

And now the story of the compliment huddle.

It was raining a lot and there was a porch just outside of our room. At one point Bailey and I along with two guys I have classes with and a guy and a girl whom I really didn't know at all were sitting on the porch, (everyone was rather intoxicated except me and the other girl, Ellen) and Bailey says, "Guys. shut up."

Drunk people speak loudly. So then she yelled again, "Guys, Shut up! I just had a great idea." (I dropped out some of the expletives that were used.)

Everyone shut up.

And then Bailey proclaimed her great idea. "We should all get in a huddle and compliment each other."

Now the thing is... if everyone had been sober they wouldn't have done it. Heck, I'm not sure that Bailey would have suggested it if she had been sober. But she was right, it was a great idea.

So Bailey suggested a compliment huddle and one guy jumped up and then everyone else on the porch stood up too and got in a huddle- all six of us. And then we went around the circle, giving each other compliments. Honestly.... I think it was one of the best ideas I've ever heard. People don't do that enough and they should.

The next morning everyone was kind of embarrassed, but bonded at the same time. Bailey kept disparaging it... I think because sometimes giving a compliment is embarrassing. What are the people going to think about you the next day, when there isn't alcohol coursing through their system? And it was her idea... but I tried to tell her not to do that. It was a really *good* thing.

One of those moments that you hold on to- A great story you tell- That time six strangers had a drunken compliment huddle on a porch during a rainstorm. You can't plan moments like that. They just happen and leave you better for it.

I don't retreat, I advance

Home again, home again.

Ok, I think it's time to kill the word game. Two posts without guesses means people don't want to do it.
The final count was: Renée- 18, Dawn- 17, Paula- 13, Rhonda-12, Melissa-4, Katie-2, Michael- 2.

Now that the business is wrapped up, on to what I really want to talk about- the writer's retreat.

My goal going into the retreat was relatively simple. Learn a little bit about writing and make some connections. And I think that I accomplished those goals.

I got to drive up and back with my friend Patrick (the one who is in my critique group.) Patrick and I are eeriely similar in background and viewpoints. In fact our current novels have overlapping ideas behind them- but they were developed before we knew each other... Also I think Patrick is hilarious. Patrick says that most people don't think he's that funny, but I think being nearly identical people I get his humor. And seriously. Homeslice is hilarious. Emily Bronte has a great quote in Wuthering Heights, "Whatever souls are made of, his and mine are the same." I think that could be said of Patrick and I-- as long as you take out the romantic context of Wuthering Heights- Patrick is firmly girlfriended and also seven years younger than I am. But that also means that we are free to just be friends without all the tension. So Patrick was great for my retreat experience. I had a friend I could sit with at meals and hang out with and who I could trust to like me and not think I was being clingy.

I'm always so afraid of being thought clingy.

Another thing that helps my experience is that writers drink... a lot. There were a few who didn't, but by and large if they didn't drink they also didn't hang around the people who did. Except, of course, for me. I didn't even have a sip of alcohol all weekend, but the great thing about everyone else being drunk when you are sober (and I put this on facebook, but it bears repeating) is that- at least for this shy girl- It's a lot easier to overcome your shy-ness because likely these people are not going to remember anything you said or did in the morning. Instead they will just have a generally positive impression of you with no real memory of why. And if you do say something stupid.. well.. so is everyone else. Also my chameleon-like abilities to mimic ensure that I don't stand out too badly as the sober one. :)

As far as writing goes, I think I learned several things, too. I think the most important thing was something one of the faculty said on Friday. "Don't be afraid to state the obvious." I am afraid to state the obvious sometimes. Most times even, especially if I'm writing for a literary audience. If it's for YA I think I'm less freaked, but for some reason I'm afraid of insulting adults... but then I got to thinking... Do you look at the Mona Lisa and are insulted because it's obviously the portrait of a woman? You look at Starry Night and are you angry that you know it's a landscape? No. It's about the style and the texture and the choices the artist makes that create the beauty. In fact, way more often people are angry if they look at some abstract piece and can't figure it out. So why am I afraid of being too obvious in my  own writing? Dumb.

I read (something I'd written) today at the last workshop before coming home. I was afraid to, but I did it anyway. I was scared because 1) It was non-fiction and referenced two people who were in the workshop with me-- not in a positive light and 2) I cursed in it... a lot. 3) I was angry in it and you know that's not how I normally roll.

But I read it... and my voice was all low and shaky cause I was so angry/emotional. (But the theatre kid in me was just a little pleased with that because it gave the piece even more verisimilitude.) And when I finished there was a pause and then everyone in the room sort of let out their breath heavily and started clapping. (The clapping was normal... the pause and the breath were not.) But the breath let me know. It let me know that I'd gotten them. Somehow I'd managed to *get* the whole room in half a page. One dude even spontaneously cried out, "How are you not published already?!"  Oh, and the guy whom I'd called out via words very generously announced to everyone in the room who he was in the story and then complimented me on my work.

I'm glad that I read it... though I sorta still can't believe that I was brave enough to do it... But in a way it feels like one more victory. A woman (who was also named Renee!) came up to me later and thanked me for reading it. She lost a sister to cancer and she said- "That was truth." Wow. *Such* a compliment.

I sorta hate that I made the widow "announcement" in such big public way, but at the same time, it might have been a good thing... there was no awkward searching for something else to say, no guilt-ridden changing of the subject. People could just comment on something that I'd done within the writing, and then we could all move on to someone else's piece. Then everyone could emotionally process me and put me into a new little box in their head before they had to actually interact with me one on one again.

There are a few other stories to tell- the compliment huddle and the awkward way I still haven't figured out how to tell an individual that I'm a widow, but those will have to wait for another day and another blog post. Maybe if you are lucky I'll have time tomorrow.

Blighted

Today a friend of mine (whom I met via the hospital) had her last IV chemotherapy. After 32 months she is finally finished.

I read about it on facebook.

Immediately after that was a status about it being someone's last day of work before they got married.

One time during the treatment process they told Nathan that they would be removing his port. We were really excited and it was all scheduled and then they took him back there and decided they couldn't do it (because of platelets or something.)

He was so upset.

We left the little office area and he got to the hall and he just slumped down the wall, tears rolling down his face. So disappointed, so upset, so devastated, because this symbol of his cancer remained in him. He'd set his hopes so hard on this one thing, and when it was taken away from him... It was the only time I ever saw him crack in public.

There are so many babies at my church. Everywhere you turn on a Sunday morning there is a baby... And that's just the people who have stayed... there are at least two other babies who have moved away.

And Nathan's cousins just had their third,

And one of the Pixelscopic guys is going to have a son within the next two weeks or so,

And Rhonda is due in November...

And I sorta feel like Nathan... slumped against a wall in the hospital because I can't hold it together any more...sitting in some random hallway with tears running down my face.

And it's not that I don't want people to complete their leukemia treatments.

And it's not that I want people to stop getting married.

And it's certainly not that I don't want people to have babies. I love babies.

I just... want to be able to join in. It makes me sad that Nathan never got to say he was done with leukemia treatments. And it makes me sad that I'm not married anymore and it makes me sad that I can't get pregnant (at least not in accordance with my morals.) But it's more than sad... I'm disappointed. I'm upset. I'm devastated.

My life isn't bad... it really isn't... but my hopes were set so hard on having a family. And all this other stuff... it's a really fun, interesting, great distraction. But in the back of my mind there is always this discomfort. I think I've managed to coat it enough to make it a pearl, but it's not like it goes away. My life has been blighted by Nathan's cancer and I don't know if it's ever going to grow properly again, no matter how much I long for it.

Kindness

The last word was tautology.

I've been thinking about kindness lately.

And how important it is.

There are people in this world to whom kindness is inherent. They are naturally considerate. They take other's viewpoints into account. They are just nice and when greeted with someone else's kindness they respond with even greater enthusiasm and generosity of spirit.

And then there are those who take kindess as their due, but who don't return it. They are blank, they are accept but do not give. They offer up very little to the world as a whole and somehow still make people want to please them. It's not that they are mean, it's just that they are a kindness black hole.

Some people are sneakier. They are only kind to their loved ones. They are nice as long as the world at large doesn't know. They have great hearts but only shine their light under a bushel.

And then there are a few who really are mean. The Scrooges of the world who I think are more prevalent on television than in real life.

I've sorta always thought that this was just how people were made. Some who have a generous spirit and some who don't.

But I'm starting to wonder... Is kindness a continuum that you can progress (and regress) on?

If you pour enough into a black hole will you find out they are not a black hole but just a really large vase?

Or will he/she always be a black hole?

Can Scrooge and the Grinch really be transformed by a Christmas miracle or are they really always gonna be a Scrooge and a Grinch?

How inherent are people's characteristics?? It's sorta like wondering if my favorite color is ever gonna change. Am I going to wake up one day and discover it's chartreuse rather than cerulean?