Your Daily Serving of Uncouth: May 2016

Well, Seattle may have officially made me soft. It's been happening since a string of bad decisions in my 20s led me to black eyes and patchy hair from a fight at the Vogue with Alicia, the candlestick dented the wall behind my boyfriend's head when he wouldn't help me with my taxes (!!!), and I chased a colleague up the stairs to fight about periods at the end of references for linking in FDA submissions. Since then, I've decided to swallow my pride and bite my tongue in disagreements at the office...because I'm a professional? Because confrontation and bullying is just a ridiculous amount of energy to exert that I seem to lack more and more each year. But TODAY officially marks the day I've taken an official sigh and realized the fight in me may be gone.

After my colleague repeatedly berates me and my coworkers at the office and I bite my tongue.

After a meeting where I know the answer to a question and sit silent because I know no one wants to hear from me and I should "know my role" and even if I DO answer a certain way, it won't be well received because it didn't come from someone at a higher pay grade.

And finally, today, after I'm parked and texting on my phone before heading out for my run, and a chick in a Fiat hits ME while attempting to park, and I DO NOTHING IN RESPONSE TO HER CUNTY COMMENTS.

Pre-Feisty Flory

Peak Feisty Flory

Post-Feisty Flory

Maybe it is age. Maybe it is maturity. Maybe it is reserving my emotions and energy for other places. But this is where I am. Is it beaten down? Not quite. Is it apathetic? Not quite. Is it exhaustion? A little.

Let me describe the scene:
I'm sitting, parked, in my car before my group running on Wednesday night. I'm typing the group text about something inconsequential when *FABUMP* I'm pushed forward into my wheel. I look up into the rearview to see a blond girl (20s) cover her mouth as her Fiat hits my car. She looks apologetic in that brief second. I give her a look of "Really?" and get out.

She steps out of her car also, "Do you have whiplash?" she says in a snotty tone, sauntering forward and PAST me as I look at my bumper.

"It's... fine," I say.

"I knew it would be," she says as she continues onto the sidewalk without stopping to acknowledge me or apologizing.

I look at her flowing cape bellowing in the wind, her platform black booties stomping on the sidewalk, her spunky bleached and grayed blonde hair, and I'm too SHOCKED to say anything.

Now, I don't know if it was the fact I was been having a fairly craptastic day up to that point and was celebrating rock star parking, or just was in sheer SHOCK, but I really wanted to kick this girl's ass....but couldn't. This scene flashed into my mind:

Also, in the back of my head I wondered about what I'd say... "WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME, YOU UNGRATEFUL LITTLE CUNT?" as I snatched her hair from behind and ripped her back to where I was nose-to-chest with her, pressing her back up into a wall.

I thought about my "fluffy" frame standing up to this twig who stood over me by at least half a foot (mostly bc shoes). I clearly outweighed her by at least 60 lbs. And I thought about backing her up to her car, an ensuing fight where her friend stood in awe and then pulled me off of her as a slackjawed PNW crowd gathered, not used to seeing any sort of REAL confrontation. And then the cops would come, and I'd be sitting on top of her, pinning her shoulders to the ground and threatening to break her nose if her friend stepped any closer.

Of course, I immediately also thought about me sitting in my CEO's office with double black eyes and a broken hand (which happens to be necessary for typing as a writer), having to explain how I managed to knock out a major donor's bratty kid and how that behavior is unbecoming of a fundraiser and not representative of our company's ability to problem solve and then getting fired.

And so I stood there, MY JAW AGAPE and watched her saunter away.

I took a pic of her car. THE UGLY BROWN FIAT that it is. I thought about calling the cops just to come and tell her not to be a snot, but they would likely yell at me for wasting their time on a snot-nosed bitch when they had real issues to deal with.

I thought about driving home, removing all my ID, and coming back and keying the fuck out of her car.

I thought about all the TERRIBLE things I could do to her...while watching the back of her head walk into a store that sells $200 t-shirts. And so I turned, and went to running with the group of women 40-and-better that I run with and relayed the story to them. They were in awe that I said nothing also, likely having confronted younger snotty girls at some point in their lives, but mostly having children of their own, so they knew how to snap back more quickly.

Told them of the bravery I WOULD have had back in the day. Told them, "I would have said to her, 'DON'T FUCK WITH ME, I'M FROM CHICAGO.'" (Knowing that I'm actually from a small town in Indiana but lived in Chi for 10 years and somehow that gives me a little bit of truth and street cred but not really.) Oh, bravery in hindsight.....

And I wondered if I had finally lost that last spark of Giving Fucks.

Has the fire been zapped from The Flory? No longer fiesty, what characteristics do I possess to make me an individual? Who am I, who have I become, and who will I be in another 20 years? Am I already one who can be pushed around?

This all came to fruition a few days later, when Nurse Nick asked to call me. In my mind one good, one bad, and one neutral thing: he is interviewing in SEattle, he or someone we love has an incurable disease, or my ex got engaged.

"Are you sitting down?" And I knew immediately.

I got news that the ex is engaged. My response, "Oh. Okay. Good for him. I hope he's happy."

No anger, no tears, no sadness, no animosity because I'd cried my last tears for him months ago when I confirmed he was, in fact, with the girl he swore he wasn't leaving me for....the same girl he's engaged to today. The same girl that I told my friends (immediately after he and I broke up in October 2014) that he would be engaged to in a year and a half, 2 years max, and they denied it. And, once again, I was right.

It's as if I haven't been the girl before the engagement 7 times now. Sheesh. I am getting good at this, guys. And it's completely okay. I don't regret that relationship, nothing about it, and certainly at this point not about being broken up and him being engaged to someone else.

The only thing I wish would have gone differently is that he would have told me the truth that he was leaving me for her, like I knew and accused him of, and he denied to my face. Because for a YEAR I blamed myself of being selfish about wanting a baby---his reason why we should break up. I believed I was a terrible person for pushing away "the love of my life" for wanting a child. And I believed that-- partially and partially knew he was likely leaving me for her--his employee who constantly texted him outside of work hours while he lived with his live-in girlfriend of multiple years (off and on). The girl who started at his job who "was kind of a free spirit," he said with THAT smile on his face.

I saw that smile on many of my exes faces. I know THAT smile. I know it, and yet don't believe it every time I see it. I see it, and if I accuse them of liking the girl (as I have in the past), then I look crazy and that I "must have been snooping" (or other accusations I've faced). Not that I broke in that half second---felt the gravity of a black hole in my chest, because I see that they see what is missing in our relationship in someone else.

No one wants to believe that they are less wanted than some fresh, new toy who knows nothing of the mommy issues, money woes, fights, joblessness, supporting someone while they "find themselves," alcoholism, addiction to drugs, or any handful of other issues that I've gladly embraced for hopes of being there on the other side of those struggles.

I am an outspoken person. I know exes won't believe it, but OH THE WARS WE HAVE AVOIDED because I have learned not to stoke certain fires at opportune moments. The way I have chosen my battles and bitten my tongue when I KNOW we disagree about music, climate change, feminist issues, and the millions of times I just DON'T GIVE A FUCK about whatever they think they are so right about and I feel exactly opposite and that I feel so right about my way. And now....THAT smile. And in that moment, as a woman I was broken--foreseeing the way the future would and did unfold. The way I grabbed so tightly at the end, trying to move a glacier in any direction but down.

And each break up and recovery is a chance for me to redefine myself. To remind myself who I am. What is at the core of who I am and what makes me fucking rad. And I am happy. I am so much happier alone, living in Seattle, living my life with friends, hiking, cooking, going out, and struggling to rub two nickels together, than feeling alone in a relationship with someone who wasn't the right fit. Alone with a person who doesn't celebrate me.

Companionship would be nice--don't get me wrong. Dating is the pits in your late 30s. I used to blame my ex for taking the "last good years" of my life--thinking I can't have kids and buying the thought that I am an undesirable troll and I might as well start searching the classifieds for apartments under bridges.

But I go out. I get sexy. I wear heels, and make up, and shave my legs for ME. To remind MYSELF that I am sexy and desireable. Yeah, it's nice to get checked out, but at this point in my life, I'm happy with who I am, where I'm at, and the person I've become. I'm not just complacent, but I'm actually pretty fucking good, man.

So in the moments when I'm on a date and see my partner's so-called-imperfection present itself to me in the form of an opening for a disagreement, I think of all the times the men I've dated have sat in silent disagreement until they get fed up and leave. How many THOUSANDS of times they have been silent and listened to me ramble, disagreed on the inside, and just watched as I chattered and prattled away. And then, time after time after time, rather than fight, they eventually see a bright, shiny something---they turn their attention elsewhere until they see exactly the thing I'm not. Someone easy-going. Someone who isn't hyper-analytical and PUSHING and challenging them to be someone they're not. I say it's about "growing" and they feel it's about "forcing" them to change. So they find someone who doesn't make them go to therapy, confront themselves and their issues, someone who says "come as you are and it's good enough" and they walk from me to them, exhale at the release of pressure, and slide a ring on that girl's finger. And I don't blame them. At all.

Maybe this less fiery Flory is for the better. It doesn't nag. It doesn't say, "What you need is...." It doesn't assume. It asks for opinions and options if that person even wants to hear my options. It says NO when it wants to. In that moment on a date, it gives me a moment of pause to decide if I am the fiery 20-something or the more experienced 30-something. Neither bad in and of themselves, but only if taken purely on their own. There are other parts of me that are far more balanced now. Where spite doesn't hunger for a fight just beneath the surface. Where I can hear a derogatory word and wince rather than get in someone's face and then talk about it later when someone's more likely to hear my point of why we shouldn't use "bitch" on a first date. Where I can be silent and let someone teach me instead of always running my mouth.

It's about balance. Wisdom is supposedly when your heart, mind, and gut are in alignment. And I'm slowly working closer to what that looks like for me. I'm exercising self-love, self-forgiveness, and self-grace. I'm trying not to go with the first thought or emotion (the instinctive one you learned growing up) and to go with the second one (the one I've learned, the one I have become).

At this point in my life, I feel like deep sighs are 70% of the "first" emotion I convey. At this point, I just need to decide if I follow those with a silent smile while shaking my head or launching into a diatribe. And it's just not really worth the energy most of the time. So maybe taking a second to think things through is good.

Maybe it is age. Maybe it is maturity. Maybe it is reserving my emotions and energy for other places. But this is where I am. Is it beaten down? Not quite. Is it apathetic? Not quite. Is it exhaustion? A little.

Your Daily Serving of Uncouth

Monday, May 23, 2016

Let's Get Cultured in Seattle!!!

Sunday, May 8, 2016

The Fight out of the Flory

Pre-Feisty Flory

Peak Feisty Flory

Post-Feisty Flory

Monday, May 23, 2016

Let's Get Cultured in Seattle!!!

Sunday, May 8, 2016

The Fight out of the Flory

Pre-Feisty Flory

Peak Feisty Flory Post-Feisty Flory

Peak Feisty Flory

Post-Feisty Flory