Choices

My child and I have a small Biggest Loser addiction. Simply put, we are suckers for a good cry, and I can recall exactly TWO episodes in the bajillion we have watched where neither one of us erupted in a case of the sniffles. Aside from the cheesy product placement, the stupid cliff hangers during weigh ins that always, as T says, have the exact opposite answer that the expressions lead you to believe, we are still suckers.

Last week's episode again, left us both in a heap of tears.

Except this time it was different. The show's contestants this season are all marred by some type of tragedy. The one that stands out the most, I'd say, is one of the show's more optimistic participants, who three years ago lost her husband and two young children in a car accident.

That said, for once, it was not the stories and the struggle to shed all that goes with a packed on pound that got us, but the message.

During one of the challenges the contestants sat around as they were tempted by a plate of something fatty: cupcakes, if I recall (actually I swear it's donuts and T swears it's cupcakes...he's probably right, so we are going with cupcakes). There would be a consequence for the person who wait for it....MADE THE CHOICE to eat the cupcake first, however, the participants did not know what that consequence would be. Near starved from the show's diet, and not wanting to sit there all night, one woman grabs a cupcake and shovels it down. Her logic, in that moment being simply...it'll be easier this way.

And, as it turns out, the woman who eats the cupcake in turn, as her own chosen fate for taking the bite essentially becomes the person charged with thus sealing the fate of those people who would be eliminated from the competition altogether.

By taking that one bite, she was then forced to choose for each team which person would weigh in, or which person would bear the team's burden in the weigh in, among other things.

In the meantime as they prepped for the weigh in, during/before/after each workout, the lobbying and conferencing about what to do/who to select for the weigh in from each team ensued. The culprit/woman of sealed fate asked each team what they wanted, and then, in the end, turned around and most often, did the exact opposite.

Again, a choice.

She could not and did not see her part in the heartache and the trust broken with her house mates, nor did she have foresight into what might happen in ensuing weeks should she deceive nearly every other person in the house; rather she saw it as a guarantee of her safety, her continuing to play the game.

We see her curt responses to her house mates' disdain, and then...one by one, each of the contestants affected by her choice as they wither/fall apart. We are reminded by all of them often and with great Hollywood drama...it's from this choice she made, to take ONE bite, and then the subsequent choices to choose who jumped on the scale, and the subsequent affect it had on each person down the chain.

It was heartbreaking. Tears were shed. And these people, raw, exposed from days and hours in the gym were taped vulnerable, pissed and deceived in their worst moments.

And all I could think sitting there, tears streaming down my face, is that this is so often how these things go, despite the horrific cupcake metaphor. People are, I believe in my core, for the most part, inherently good.

And yet, they make choices that absolutely suck sometimes, and I would like to believe, when they make these choices they have little to no foresight into the subsequent round of choices, and choices, each with a larger, more widespread impact. Likewise, with the case of the gobbling cupcake, we still must be held accountable.

Or at least we should be.

It was a wonderful, defining moment to share with my son, nonetheless. We talk constantly about choices, and I have often used the metaphor of throwing a rock into a pond of water, the circles that reverberate out from the rock as it enters the water as that first choice, then the subsequent choices. And then, how the events connected to it and subsequent choices go outward and last far longer than the initial plop that rock makes in the water. And yet, T's never fully understood it, by his own omission, until he saw that episode.

It is unfortunate and breaks my heart that the lesson T learned twice last week was from negative choices or illustrations of this, versus positive, happy ones. That said, it is nonetheless priceless to teach a little man of my own responsibility that a choice: an action, no matter how benign and no matter how harmless or insignificant it may seem on the surface; it has the ability to cause others inexplicable pain. It also has the ability to cause inexplicable joy.

I asked T to think about what he'd choose. He turned it around and asked me to do the same.

And then we talked about the latter, bigger portion of all this which is this: he, I, all of us will, in our lives make some awful, shitty, choices that affect many more people in ways that we likely never originally intended.

I told my kid, that my job is ensuring that when he inevitably makes that shitty choice; to demand that he not follow it up with more shitty choices, but rather, learn to take ownership, apologize and make amends, fall on his sword.

It will be a lifelong lesson, I suspect.

It should be for us all.

Omission and Aftershock

Thanks to all of you faithful people for leaving me notes, prods for additional information and also virtual hugs. It's amazing how they all have appeared when I've most needed them. My apologies for being vague of late. The past week was a challenge. Eventually when I am able to speak from less of a raw vantage point, the posts will come.

In the meantime, I hope I never lose the link to this site so am going to paste it here, along with and excerpt that helped me feel a lot less crazy this past week.

I had the unfortunate experience of losing one of my most coveted and beloved friends...to a huge lie of omission. In short, I gave of myself, my time, my love, over the course of a dozen years, only to find out that I only knew half the story. Half his story, maybe less.

Here's the thing: if you are my friend, and I don't trust you...we have nothing. All I hold close know this. I covet honesty first and foremost above all else.

To say that the choice/the lies of omission have been painful and rocked my perception of what is real and what is not would be a mild understatement. It is my hope that one day this person will find the ability to look at the choices he made with complete honesty and willingly accept the pain he caused by them. I also equally hope that with that comes an ability to create for himself so much better; to stop continuing down the same broken path. If not for his own sake, for his kids'.

For now, I concentrate on what this experience taught me. Most if it, sadly, is at this moment, far from positive. It will be a very, very long time before I trust in this way again, perhaps ever. I remain... however broken, happy to again have found sleep, to have put the initial aftershocks behind me, and to have found myself wrapped in love, understanding, and support by some amazing friends, both near and far.

I continue on my own path with a clear conscious, nothing hidden, nor nothing to hide. I will never take for granted those people who value the same. Nor should you.

********************************************

From here:

A lie of omission is to remain silent when ethical behavior calls for one to speak up. A lie of omission is a method of deception and duplicity that uses the technique of simply remaining silent when speaking the truth would significantly alter the other person's capacity to make an informed decision.

To lie by omission is to remain silent and thereby withhold from someone else a vital piece (or pieces) of information. The silence is deceptive in that it gives a false impression to the person from whom the information was withheld. It subverts the truth; it is a way to manipulate someone into altering their behavior to suit the desire of the person who intentionally withheld the vital information; and, most importantly, it's a gross violation of another person's right of self-determination.

A lie of omission is the most insidious, most pervasive, and most common lie on the entire planet. Commonly, those who use this type of lie, have conned themselves into believing that to intentionally remain silent when ethical behavior calls for one to speak up is not a lie at all. In spite of overwhelming evidence that their silence deceives, misleads, and often causes untold grief and misery, they refuse to speak the truth.

The Inevitable Consequences: There is also the common misconception that intentional deception by silence has no consequences. Lies of commission (telling a lie) and lies of omission (withholding the truth) are both acts of intentional deception. Both reap the same consequences.

I Don't Want A Husband...I Want a Lifelong Traveling Companion

Couldn't have said it better myself if I'd tried. Read it here.

Quotable

Sometimes, when you have so much to say, it is easier to do one of two things:

1. Say nothing

2. Allow someone else to say what you might have tried to say because they are infinitely better.

I have done both. My silence is deafening, and it is not because I have nothing to say. It is rather, that I have so much filling my head it is difficult to download a coherent sentence/thought process of intelligible value.

During this time, these times, the words of others strike me. Today, it is these:

"Human beings, by their nature, tend to create that which they most fear. Always choose wisely."

"Never allow someone to be your priority, when you allow yourself to be their option."

Finally, because today is dark, windy...a little hunter s. for your mon-daze:

"Maybe there is no Heaven. Or maybe this is all pure gibberish—a product of the demented imagination of a lazy drunken hillbilly with a heart full of hate who has found a way to live out where the real winds blow—to sleep late, have fun, get wild, drink whisky, and drive fast on empty streets with nothing in mind except falling in love and not getting arrested . . . Res ipsa loquitur. Let the good times roll."

~hunter s thompson

Lest I remind you.....or perhaps I should just remind myself:

"Just because you don't know your direction doesn't mean you don't have one."
~Battlestar Galactica

Cuttin' Grass

I've been out cutting grass, he said.

We mow here, we don't 'cut grass,' she said.

Mowing? Isn't that what cows do? he said.

No, they chew their cud. And shit pies, she said.

My Baby, Playing Football

Yesterday at approximately half past two in the afternoon, my baby donned full football padding and took to the field in his first tackle football game of his little career. I'll admit it, it was completely and totally surreal; my kid, out there playing on a full 100 yards of newly laid turf, all geared up shouting audibles as his team's QB for all the world to hear:

DOWN!

SEEEET!

Hut!

Except each time, the hut came out a little more like a high pitched squawking bird than it did a little man.

And each time my dad and I couldn't help but look at each other and laugh our respective asses off at the hilarious absurdity of it all: grandpa, daughter, son....three generations tied together by sports and one prepubescent, very high pitched HUT!

P.S. He won. He scored. Life was good at Chez Ali last night. Real good.

Battered But Not Broken

He's more bad-ass than pushover: bald headed, wears black, rides insane amounts of miles mostly in solitude on a motorcycle, has a penchant for trivia, a quick smile, but just as readily will curl his brow and scowl in disagreement if he doesn't like what you've said.

His eyes dance and yet pierce through you during intense conversation and still, there is always a gorgeous abyss of gentle that flows just beneath the jagged surface. He's as likely to drop an f-bomb as he would plant a kiss on your mother's cheek, and yet, he'll litter his diatribes with the intense animated desire to punch people who piss him off. He peppers conversations with bits of silence that let you know his words are always well chosen, and sometimes the silences linger, because he’s inaccessible in thought.

He has allowed me at various times throughout the past decade to peek beneath his tough exterior and see pieces of his heart. It’s the sort of carte blanche access a girl gets as a friend and not a girlfriend; the in your face, flip you shit for your indiscretions and make fun of you for your vulnerabilities friendship. Easy, laced with humor and deep seeded, like family.

For all these reasons and a thousand others, I am and always will be insanely protective of this man. The idea of anyone taking advantage of his rich, rare balance of goodness, humor, and tender laced bad-assedness seems akin to drowning a baby kitten. I don’t intend to allow it on my watch, even if his heart is, fifty seven times bigger than his head and sometimes he needs beaten with a stick.

*****
He and his ex-wife share two stunningly gorgeous kids, and as he says in summation of his failed marriage, “relationships do not become stronger by having children. Children, in all their beauty and wonder and awesomeness…they expose your weaknesses.”

In their case the fissures and cracks started to splinter out long before the first baby was born, and hence, despite both their best intentions, they were unable to withstand two quick and difficult pregnancies, newborns, transitions, babies, his business, her job, the late nights, toddlers, insecurities, subsequent anger and everything that goes in between… divorce.

They broke.

He left her in the home he built for himself long before her time; she lives there now with their two children while she picks up the pieces, her pieces, gathers for herself a better education, moves on.

Eventually, he will move back. In the meantime he splits his time between two other homes, one of convenience and one of comfort for his kids’ sake/visits, neither of them fully his own. He lives in the midst of full throttle chaotic transition with no end in sight for years, possibly more.

She ‘cannot’ work because she is in school and so he financially supports them all willingly, without complaint, and well above and beyond what any court would require because as he says, “It will be better for all of us later, I hope.”

Yet in his house, the one he built himself literally, figuratively and otherwise, hope is fleeting and anger triumphs over grace.

Intense emotions bubble up and out of every interaction she has with him: she yells and belittles him in front of their kids, she cries, she constantly, without abandon and by jaw dropping means invades his privacy, and yet she continues to depend wholly on him on a whim, and in that same whim, he will without complaint alter his schedule, the visitation schedule, the financial schedule, his work schedule to suit hers, no matter the inconvenience to him. He goes along with it without outward complaint, instead focusing on being thrilled to spend more time with his kids, even if it means that more nights than not, he sleeps three, maybe four hours on a good night.

I sit on the other end of the phone, taking it all in, note that he’s growing weary, distant, more exhausted and now teetering on the brink of anger, cracking all the time. He pulls me in and pushes me away subconsciously, acquiescing when I prod for more.

He works till 2 a.m. Shows up for kid duty at 6 a.m. She fails to tell him for the second week that she doesn’t actually have to leave. He literally falls asleep telling me.

*****

Soon after his marriage ends, he escapes to the comfort of a woman. As he tells me, she is a lovely soul, two kids, similarly challenged although by different circumstances lost post divorce and in need of some help.

They share comfort during a mutually vulnerable time. She needs help. He, I am guessing, finds purpose in being needed and the escape from his own reality. “First it was a phone, so I put her on my line,” he says. “Then one month some cash, so I helped her out.”

Slowly, surely, he finds himself, regains his footing, his generosity ridiculously overextended, the relationship breaks.

In the same conversation about the ex, the one where he falls asleep, he tells me this woman also called that day, wanting to see him for dinner and then calling later wanting to be sure he’ll pay.

She’s broke.

******************************

These are the life lessons of relationships. I get this, embrace it even, because in many, many ways, his lessons are mine. We joke that it is easy for me to point and laugh at his indiscretions because they are easy to see; they are also my own.

I also wholly subscribe to the belief that there are two people in every relationship, and largely one’s ability to move on depends not on the other person’s failures or faults, but wholly one’s ability to stand in front of a mirror buck naked and look honestly and accurately at their part; accepting wholly the blame for what they owned in the union’s failure.

In these two cases, I have heard only one side of these women’s stories and it was not their own. However I have stalwart trust in his perception of reality, no reason to doubt his intentions, as I have sat and listened again and again, to him taking the blame often times for ridiculously more than his part.

I have also, in his most vulnerable moments blurted our obscenities at the atrocity of it all, and expressed an interest in shaking these women silly, for first, taking advantage of him, but second and most importantly, for seeing nothing that they own, for not taking responsibility for their part.

The other parent available 6 a.m. to help? The other parent to financially support me and the children while I attend to school? The other parent to want actively to fix the relationship, despite it’s brokenness as a union, for the sake of the kids? The ability to email a schedule, have my ex- say, okay, no problem?

Yesterday I sat, again, phone pressed to my ear, mouth ajar listening as all his exhaustion and honesty and vulnerability as it bubbled out and I told him he was reducing himself to the level of a marionette puppet for these women, and to please stop before it killed him.

And then I hung up and felt like a grand pile of poo.

Sure, I feel confident in telling him this, insisting to him that he take better care of himself, even for in a round about way asking him to look at his part in being taken advantage of, but in the end, all I really want to do is I want to grab these women by the shoulders, shake them, and yell and scream that they, they are the ones who ruin the last of these rare men; the ones that bring with them the gifts of their unabashed generosity, caring, and commitment to their children.

These women are without grace, without ownership of their part, and wholly put themselves in a position of entitlement. They don’t own their shit. And because I don’t know either of them and because he called and told me two more stories…I went postal on him.

Sure, we laughed about it. Both our visual minds, him dancing around like some puppet suspended by strings, but it was a poignant, strong, and awfully misplaced message to throw him all his transition, his tired change, his exhaustion, his frustration, coming to me for support.

It was especially awful of me because when I own my part, I can fully and readily admit, that all I ever dreamed of…was finding and then keeping a man around of his beauty, character, tenacity and strength. One who despite his human brokenness, failed relationships, painful life punches... is still there offering the upmost respect, unequivocal love and support to that woman, the mother of his children, his children.