Clown Down March 13, 2012

Quick follow up.  My car smells like a stripper.  However, my hair is all better and the jacket is saved.  The shirt…I will bury it.  RIP silk blouse.  I loved you.

This story from my past has come up three times in one week.  Who am I to keep this story from y’all when fate CLEARLY wants me to share?

Confession time: I’m terrified of clowns.  Like….go into a panic, start shaking and act like I’m five years old terrified.  Why, you ask? Well, it’s simple really.

EVERY time I was at the circus with my family, the one child plucked from the audience to play with the clowns? Your girl here.  Every. Freaking. Time.

I can still smell the clown makeup, feel the fake hair tickle my skin… it makes me cringe.  And because my mom always taught me that when in public, you behave with decorum and grace? My sweet little girl self summoned all her courage to hold in the tears.  Shake? Yes, I would shake, but I’d fake a smile brighter than any big city lights.

They would stuff me in their car, squirt me with water guns, and pass me around like I was a sack of potatoes.  Funny?  Funny my ASS. Every time they would finish, I would run back to mom half hyperventilating.  She always thought I was over-reacting, or scared to be in front of so many people.  Really??? If you read this blog, you know I love a stage! I was scared of the clowns, not the people.

When I grew old enough to pitch tantrums and care less if I was punished, I stopped having to go to the circus.  I thought that it was all behind me….until…

I went to a famous haunted house.  It was one of those where you can only go through two at a time and had to sign a waiver about heart conditions. Yes.  It had some jumpy moments, but I had yet to cry from fear as the ads all promised.

We went in to the last room.  At this point, my friend jumped in front of me and protects me like she’s shielding me from gunfire.  I peep around.  I see it.  A jack in the box.  A big one.  I hear the creepy music.  We both knew it was coming and I couldn’t run away fast enough.

The creepy clown pops out and I enter total fear mode.

Clown: grabs my right wrist Oh come with me pretty!

Me: turn away You LET GO.  You aren’t supposed to touch me!!!

Clown: Rules are made to be broken. Hahaha... sick, twisted laugh…still holding my wrist and tugging at me

Me: LET. GO. NOW.

Clown: Hahahaha

Me: I’m warning you…..

Clown: Hahahahaha….Are you scared????

At this point, I haul off and punch the hell out of the clown with a left hook.

Clown goes DOWN. 

I caught him right on that spot in your jaw…the one that totally knocks you out. It was the first and only time I have ever punched anything that wasn’t in a gym-sanctioned kickboxing class.  I broke every nail on my hand and was bleeding, but I didn’t care. Clown was down.  I was safe.

My friend fled to fend off security, who was coming to get me for punching the clown.  I put my hands up – you are supposed to do that right?  Tears, streaming down my cheeks.  All I can get out is: He. Wouldn’t. Let. Go. I. Told. Him….

Security throws me over his shoulder like a caveman.  Was that really necessary??? And carries me, friend in tow, out of the building.

Security: He had it coming ma’am.  I wouldn’t worry….but, we do have to remove you from premises and tell you not to return.

Me: sobbing Ok.

Friend: Dude. You totally knocked his ass out.

Me: Mmhm. sniff sniff

Friend: Remind me not to cross you…you’ve got a hell of a left hook.

Me: sniff sniff  But I’m right handed.

Friend and Security: Damn…

Moral of the story: I still hate clowns.  And, I’ll knock your ass out if you don’t let go when I ask nicely.

On Love. February 13, 2012

Over the weekend I got into a debate with my mom about why people do stupid things for love.  It was centered around Valentine’s Day and veered into Whitney Houston’s death.  In that moment with my mom, I realized I was thisclose to being a Whitney not once but twice in my life.  It’s a deeply personal set of stories, but here goes.

The first mistake I made was a boy named Nick.  He was a model…and he was brilliantly smart.  I was young, innocent, impressionable and totally smitten.  He was my first everything.  First date, first kiss, first time I really really really lied to my parents, first person I had a drink with, first heartbreak and a million other firsts.

I was crazy about him in a way that still perplexes me.  And….he was horrible for me.  He introduced me to a world of excess and destructive behavior.  I overlooked every basic rule I was taught just because I really thought if I loved him hard enough, we would overcome and endure any calamity.  Nick and I were miserable apart, but he knew…oddly at such a young age…that we were terrible together.   I did too, but I couldn’t admit it. He was selfish.  I was selfless.  There was nothing I wouldn’t do for him, nothing I couldn’t rationalize away.  But, Nick loved me enough to know he didn’t love me enough.  It’s a horrible realization, but one that saved my life I’m sure.  Turns out? Saved his too.

After a long series of break ups and make ups, the final straw was a trip to NYC to visit Nick.  Suffice it to say what should have been a most special night ended abruptly with me turned out to the city streets alone.  A girl from a town population 1500 in a fully unfamiliar megacity….no one knew where I was…and a baby at that…. its a miracle I survived the evening.  Alone on a curb, I bargained with God.  If He would let me get home safe, I’d never put myself in that situation again.  It took every ounce of courage and strength I had to pick myself and leave.  I never looked back.  I never called.  I never emailed.  I won’t lie – that turned me hard and callus.  I was jaded and I know I hurt some people.  But I just didn’t care.  I thought they were all the same…so hurt or be hurt? I chose hurt.  Actually I chose flee without hurt if possible, but sometimes it just isn’t.

Years later, I ran into Nick at a fast food chain over a holiday back home.  Crazy right…but yeah, his modeling days were long gone and apparently he has a thing for fried food now.  Anyway, when I saw him I felt like a giddy teenager.  Then, I immediately felt suffocated and terrified.  We wound up talking in a back booth until closing, then we went to his car for more cathartic – re-hashing coulda-woulda-shouldas.

Finally, “that NYC night” came up. Turns out after I left, he felt so bad about hurting me so intensely and missed me with such veracity, that he drove further into his bad behaviors.  When that didn’t work, he checked himself into rehab, and vowed the only way he’d ever speak to me again was if fate intervened because that was the nicest thing he could do for me.

And as if it were a movie, I Will Always Love You came on the radio right then.  No kidding…. we both held each other and cried because it was so oddly poignant.  That was the last time I saw him.  I hear he’s married with a kid in the mid-west.  A far cry from the city lights and fast times of his youth.

And then… I met Paul.

Paul was, is, the mistake that almost killed me.  He was just like Nick – dangerous, handsome, smart, wealthy…. I was entwined in his life before I could think.  We were the “it” couple in most circles…but what they didn’t see was what Paul did in private.  His crazed temper. The alcohol.  The drugs.  The cheating.  It was Nick2.0 and I was too stupid to realize it.

My addiction with Paul spanned a decade.  I call it addiction because I think that’s what it was.  I couldn’t get out no matter how I tried.  All I could do….all I did…was turn myself off emotionally again because it was all I had left to do.  It hurts less if you are numb.  Have you heard that song Gravity by Sara Bareilles?  If not, listen to it or click here to read the lyrics.  The lyrics were exactly me.  I lost friends.  I lost family.  I lost myself.

All the bad things Nick did to me? Paul was worse.  Paul didn’t love me enough to KNOW he didn’t love me enough.  And my stubborn ass fought for him because I thought love was supposed to be fully unconditional no matter what torture or hell they put you through…that whole for better or worse thing you know?  I thought that part of love was pain and suffering. I thought that what I had was normal.  I forgave a lot.  I dismissed a lot.  I did things I shouldn’t have.

Eventually, by God’s grace, the insanity with Paul ended.  I’ve never been so simultaneously sad and joyous in my life.  The chains were lifted, but the gravitational pull of the relationship still sucked me in like a black hole.  In those moments of reflection, I realized that I had escaped again. Barely…..

Had I stayed with Nick or Paul, I would certainly have ended up dead.  Be that in spirit, or physically, or both – the momentum was already spinning precariously out of control.  And in some ways, I think part of me did die in each relationship.  My innocence, my ability to trust, my openness to love and be loved…those died. Can they be revived? I think so.  I’m working on it. I don’t know if I will ever full have the wide-eyed, small town, first love innocence again…. but that’s probably a good thing.

In thinking about the untimely death of Whitney Houston, I think how close I was to that path.  The world lost Whitney long before her physical body was gone just like the world lost me for a while.  I think that like me, she got involved with the wrong guy.  I think she wanted to love so much that she would have done anything to keep it, just a little more intensely than I did.  I think drugs and alcohol were an easy escape when the pain of the relationship was too much for any soul to brave.  It is so much easier to shove emotions and realizations that things are over underneath a rug, especially if the rug is a bottle of Jack….or whatever you poison may be.  It’s easier to forgive and dismiss someone’s behavior if it’s under a veil of substances.  No matter what he does, if you are turned off emotionally and can attribute it to some substance…. you last another day. I know.  I’ve done it.  I regret it.

I’m so lucky that I got out at the exact right moments.  No matter how much it hurt, life with either of them would have been so much worse.  I’m blossoming again.  I realize now that love…love is NOT what I thought.  Love should be pure.  Love doesn’t hurt you physically.  Love doesn’t scar you intentionally.  Love doesn’t emotionally break you…if it’s actual love.  And if it isn’t actual love?  Well…. do what you want, I’m not gonna judge…but just acknowledge it for whatever it is.  Real love is scary.  Real love is blind.  Real love melds two souls into one…but that doesn’t mean love should change your innate spiritual and ethical structure.

So my dearest bloggies, no matter who you spend your Valentine’s Day with, please make sure you keep your head.  It’s easy to lose track of yourself.  Remember how important you are.  And if you forget?  Ask your mom….or your best friend.  They are great for helping you remember.

Big hugs and Happy Valentine’s Day,

Me

Fear and Monsoons September 6, 2011

I had an awful weekend.  The result was me fleeing to a neighboring state that was void of all things stressful.  Well….so I thought.
I took the hell dog with me.  We will call her Sausage (because she looks more like a sausage link than a dog at this point).  Sausage was in a bad mood and pretty much bit at the air and screamed at me the whole way.  I took her with me into a store and where I conducted some serious retail therapy.   Apparently this was not acceptable because the heavens opened up and torrential rains were pouring down.  Me, the healthy one, parked all the way out at the end of the parking lot.  So me, my purchases and Sausage had to brave the sideways rain and my newly coiffed hair.  There is no recovering from that.  When I got everything into the car, I had to dry Sausage.  A prissy dog, Sausage was not ok with her wet mane (also recently coiffed).  I managed to get her mostly back to normal, except for her tail.  Sausage’s tail  looked like it had met a bad perm from the 80s and possibly a crimping iron from the 90s.  Although Sausage is not my favorite furry animal, I did feel for her.  Her eyes were screaming, “Damn you rain!”  So was I.  I looked horrible….and therefore no photos were not taken.

Poor Sausage. Her tail never did untangle.

So that was traumatic, but it did not prepare me for what came next.  GPS decided that I should take a scenic way home.  Ok.  That sounds ok – plus it is about half an hour closer…..oh how wrong.

Apparently GPS has a different definition of “scenic” than I do.  Scenic, to my demented GPS, means windy roads, fog, and nothing but barns and trailers.  I kept thinking, “My God…none of these dwellings would withstand the Big Bad Wolf. Yes, I referenced the Three Little Pigs.

Literally y’all, there was not a “real” home for almost 45 minutes.  I grew up in a small town, so I have mega love for the non-urban life.  However, this was not small, quaint town.  This was drag you into a barn and murder you – no one would ever hear you scream territory.  Also, it was eerie still.  Not quiet and calm, rather it was the eerie kind of still that makes your skin crawl.  And, since it had monsooned, there was a thick fog.  And there was a bear.  And a dog.  You’ll see.

I realized that Sausage and I could be abducted and/or eaten by wolves or bears.  I was momentarily happy that I didn’t look my normal, pulled together self.  Perhaps this would help me blend in and deter whatever is out there.

I began to take photos as best I could while driving, solely to document my life and location in case I was abducted.  Here is a random sampling.  I did make it out alive….but I will never trust my GPS again….ever.

One of many creepy barns along the way. However, damn that grass looks great!

Wet road, creepy fog, winding road and steep drop off. WHY does my GPS hate me so?

Another creepy barn.

I have no idea what possessed me to document this.

What I didn't capture was the bear that ran into the woods. Maybe you can see him if you squint?

I drove as fast as I can. This is what fear looks like.

Even the dog looked at me like WHAT in hell are you doing on this road. RUN NOW.