Oh Shit, I’m Standing In It

“Make sure you marry someone who laughs at the same things you do.”

J.D. Salinger

Truthfully, the life I most deeply desire might be the one I am living. It’s not perfect, and yet, I’m not trying to be aggrandizing or make some philosophical leap beyond my scope. It’s just that it appears that my life is a composite of all my previous decisions (good and bad) and a few that were made for me (birth, socioeconomic standing, geography).

I think about this a lot with respect to the things I don’t like about myself, my flaws, if you will, or the way in which I respond to the unexpectedness of life. I suppose at 63, one of the hardest things I’ve ever done is acknowledging when I fuck up, owning it, and repairing the damage when possible. 

My most important lessons have been my own mistakes, especially the ones I know about but secretly protect. I’ve done all the usual things, trusted the wrong people, held grudges well past their expiration date, and enjoyed some candy while food shopping that I never paid for. Okay, I’ve done worse, but I don’t want my mother to turn over in her grave. 

It’s when I finally see the error of my ways and make the necessary adjustments that I reap the benefits because I’ve always believed that when we know better, we do better. I think it was Maya Angelou who coined that thought. But here’s the kicker, you can’t berate others with your newly discovered truth, they will find it in their own time.

The thing is, if I really look at it, I tend to stay within the safe parameters that I set for myself early on in life. It’s what kept me alive but also stagnant. As I age, it feels as if I’ve built a shell around the person I am, so all you see is the shell, and the real me stays hidden, safe, and, most importantly, protected.

Writing for me is like coming out of my shell. I think it frightens Larry because that little snail, without its shell, can be almost transparent.

I’m walking by the television the other day, the one Larry leaves on, even when he’s not watching. It drives me crazy, and yes, I’ve been known to turn it off and hide the remote. I’m sorry, but there is nothing more entertaining than a man who thinks he misplaced his own remote and starts running around the living room in search of the thing now residing in the butter dish in the refrigerator. He doesn’t think that’s as funny as I do, but he smirks at my ransoms notes.

Let’s agree I still have some weeds in my garden. 

This is what caught my attention on the teli. It was one of those raunchy talk shows. There’s a man and woman clearly at odds with each other. 

The woman says, “I put up with your shit for years.” Which made me laugh, so I stayed to hear what the guy was going to say.

The man says, “I didn’t know I was such an asshole.” Really?

And that got me thinking.

If there is something about me, my relationships, and/or my lifestyle that no longer serves me, or those I love, then I have to act as opposed to observing my annoying tendencies and allowing them to prosper. At least, this is what I’m trying to do, especially within the confines of a marriage that we vowed to endure for better or for worse.

Right.

The thing is, I haven’t changed that much after all these years. Yes, I do some things differently, but as Nadia Bolz-Weber says, my jagged edges continue to snag the fabric of my life. No one gets through this life unburdened by their mistakes and wayward disposition, but that’s what makes for an interesting story.

Larry and I just had this conversation last night after a rather tense outing.

I say, “At this point in our life, you’re going to have to be okay with doing what I want on occasion.”

Larry says, “We did what you wanted. We went to the boring restaurant with no music and expensive cocktails.”

“Instead of the sketchy bar with loud music, questionable clientele, and no wine.”

“I was amenable.”

“You whined the entire time, and when the bill came, you acted like you were going to have a heart attack.”

“I paid the price.”

“But you ruined the experience.”

I bring this up because Larry and I have entered a new stage of life, and we’re trying to adjust to our new status as unemployed. We’ve found that the things we enjoy doing most, the things we find personally rewarding, are shockingly at odds with each other. 

I like to write, which he refers to as sitting. He likes to be doing something every second of the day, which I refer to as outrunning retirement. I’m a fan of refined wines and classy restaurants, whereas Larry likes cold beer and an establishment where you throw your peanut shells on the floor. 

We’re all about ambiance.

I’ve noticed how the topic of retirement, in general, has become as sensitive as the conflict between stay-at-home moms and working moms, or those who are vaccinated and those who are not. It’s a delicate subject because we all envision our lives differently, we have our own financial obligations, personal goals, and plans that no one can see or hypothesize about. 

Unemployment is not for everyone. Half the people who retire go back to work within a year, and there’s a reason for that. Coworkers are much less demanding and often more compassionate than spouses. Of course, they don’t have to pay off mortgages, raise kids, or wash dirty underwear together, which makes relationships much easier! 

This morning Larry says, “Okay, what’s the game plan? Are you going to sit there (he refuses to say writing), or are we going to the winery?” Now he’s already told me an hour ago exactly what he wants to do for the rest of the afternoon, but I ignored him and continued writing.

I say, “Can you please stop referring to my time writing as sitting here?”

“I have plenty to do, so if you want to sit there, I can fill in my day.”

“I need you to stop saying sit there and replace it with writing. Can you do that?” He waves me off, so I try and salvage the day before I throw my coffee cup across the room and say, “How about we head to Cache Creek at 2:00 pm, stop by Six Sigma and see how the glamping is coming? Then come home.”

“I don’t want to do two wineries.”

“Oh, yeah, you want to float. Okay, let’s go to Cache Creek at 2:00 pm and then come home and take out the boat. I’m not sure I want to float, but I can always dangle my feet in the water. We can stop by the grill if you’re hungry.”

“So we’ll be at Cache Creek at 1:00 pm.”

“2:00 pm, we’ll leave at 1:30 pm.”

“We have a game plan.”

“We don’t need one, we’re retired.”

Are you feeling the tension? He has to have a plan. I like to wing it and see what happens. I might get in the zone with my writing and want to sit here longer than expected. He just can’t abide by that standard.

So we’re adjusting to each other, and I think we need a little WD40.

Whatever stage you might find yourself in life, it could be the giddy charm of being newlyweds, the stress of the parenting years, the conundrum of middle age, the complexity of retirement, or the devastation of our lives coming to an end. The thing is, we’re the same people we’ve always been, we’re just dealing with new situations, and that is rather telling don’t you think? 

I read somewhere that a famous prison warden (I don’t know why this came to mind) who was known for his reformation tactics with the inmates. He wanted to make them successful participants in society outside of prison. He was told by a reporter, “A leopard never changes his spots.”

The warden responded, “I’m not dealing with leopards, I’m dealing with humans who have the capacity to change.”

So Larry went out to rake something, I went back to this article, and I’m positive that we’ve made no viable progress to accommodate or understand each other. This is the honeymoon phase of the newly unemployed, except we can’t return from our exotic location or get pregnant.

But I have to believe we can change, if ever so slightly, because I don’t want to be accused of sitting here for the rest of my life, and he doesn’t want me to ignore his need for a schedule that calms his mind and allows him to move forward. 

I remember our first week of marriage when we had a cutthroat, throw-down, gnarly battle over the thermostat. See, I moved into his apartment, and he considered the thermostat to be his sole responsibility. We lived in the Northwest. Our pool was frozen over, it was early December, and I was cold. I turned up the heat. He accused me of disrupting the climate of our lives.

Not much has changed. I’m still disruptive, he’s still controlling, and together we’ve managed to build a life on those constants.

Larry and I might always start our day with a natural conflict between sitting and doing, but we’re making progress, and thank God we both have a healthy sense of humor. The hedge has been trimmed, I’m writing the last words of this convoluted post, and we’ll be heading out in an hour for the pickup party.

What we don’t know yet is we’ll run into some old friends at the winery, Charlotte and Howard, they’ll invite us to join their table of friends, and we’ll shoot the shit with our new friends until Cache Creek closes. On the way home, Larry will pull into a local dive bar with sketchy clientele and 70s music blaring on the jukebox. We’ll put down some awesome appetizers and ice-cold beer because there is no wine, just sayin. The guy sitting next to me at the bar might be missing a few teeth, and his shirt was buttoned incorrectly, but he told Larry, “You’re one hell of a lucky man.” 

Now I’m rethinking my entire stance on dive bars because when I fuck up, I own up. I nudge Larry, “This might be my new favorite place.” 

Where is the life I deeply desire? I’m standing in it, and it happens to be exactly where I want to be. 

I’m Living in the Gap, just sitting here, how’s your summer going?

New offer! If you use Grow Damn It for your next book club, six or more people, I’ll join you and bring the Lake County wine! Here are a few links where you can pick up a copy:

Amazon

Barnes and Nobel

Black Rose Writing

Book Inc.