Category: adulthood

adulthood · change · intimacy · sex · sexuality

Sex Ed.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Normal
0
0
1
599
3419
28
6
4198
11.1287

0

0
0

There is more right with you than wrong.
I had a therapist once who used to tell me, “As long as you
can take a full, deep breath into your lungs, there is more right with you than
wrong.”
Today, on the most gorgeous day we’ve seen in the Bay, I finally succumbed to the pseudo-strep throat thing
that’s been passing around work, and this afternoon, I’m performing a preview scene of
the play I’m in that opens at the end of the month.
So, I take homeopathics, vitamin Cs, a heavy dose of
over-the-counter Western, and The Show Must Go On.
And I’ve been thinking about sex. Because, who hasn’t?
I’ve been thinking about the unintentional self-imposed
celibacy I was in from August of 2011 through October of 2013. You can do math,
and understand that’s more than two years
without sex.
And, it’s not like there were some clandestine, but
ultimately PG-13 moments in there, either. It was pretty much a white-out
period.
Granted, about 8 of those months I was bald and a sallow
shade of green, but, the year prior to cancer was not a wanton, robust one.
It was sort of intentional. I’d broken up with my ex in the
early months of 2011, had two rounds of rebound sex that left me feeling more
empty than fulfilled, and a few months later, found myself back in bed with my
ex in a misguided attempt to see if we could pump (pun intended) life back into
our relationship.
We couldn’t. And I finally realized that giving the milk for
free was wearing me down.
And so began the Great Celibacy of my 30th Year. The year
women are purported to have the greatest libido. Probably because our bodies
are sending Morse Code messages through our hormones, stating, Get on with the
baby-making thing, lady, Time’s a marching.
I began sending texts to two girl friends as each month
passed: Two months, no sex. Six months, no sex. A YEAR, no sex. It was
appalling but also, I wasn’t about to jump into the sack with anyone just to
get my rocks off – because, honestly, you can’t ever be sure that your rocks
will get off with someone you don’t know that way. It’s a crap shoot, and is it
worth it to have lackluster sex with someone who you know you’re not that into?
Hm.
It’s not as if I denied myself the pleasures of carnality; I took
matters amply in hand. But it wasn’t the same. It’s never the same—as good sex, at least. Sure, you’re pretty sure you’re gonna
get your happy ending, and don’t have to think about what you do afterward, how
long you wait for him to leave, or if you cuddle or not. But, part of a poem I
wrote during the celibacy goes:
i only ever imagine the weight of
you
when i’m alone with myself at
night
i can find folds that you can’t
and pace myself as you won’t
but alone, i can never press
myself into the
evaporating softness
                                 or grip the muscles of your back
as if you were my life preserver
I once read a story that included the line, “At night, she
masturbated herself to an unsmiling orgasm.” What a waste.
I broke the celibacy last Fall with a very pointed and mutually
understood bootie call with someone I’d been on a internet date with twice, but
who wanted to just hook up, and though there was certainly physical chemistry,
I didn’t want that and we parted amicably. A year and a half after that date, my hair grown back to something I could pass as feminine, I
asked him if he was still interested in something “casual,” and he was, and I
was, and we were, and it was…Awesome.
But, that poem of mine concludes:
how does this alchemy work?
lead returns to lead as
i bolt the door behind you
the moment gimped
by an awkward exchange of
‘see you’s
what tangle the sheets are in,
still warm,
i climb back into them as if
i could coax them into being
you
and you were something else
So sometimes, celibacy is the better answer, isn’t it?
“Life is meant to be lived,” has been going through my head, though. And my body is still one of a woman in her early thirties receiving and
extending messages that say, Virile and Viable. And sometimes, it’s worth the
awkward exchange, and sometimes it’s not. Sometimes you eat the cupcake, and
sometimes you don’t. And sometimes you take a full, deep breath and remember
that there is more right with you than wrong. And perfection is an illusion,
“really.”

acting · adulthood · calm · connection · excitement · health · performance · theater

Wow. Wowie Wow Wow

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Normal
0
0
1
544
3102
25
6
3809
11.1287

0

0
0

(Christopher Walken on SNL; check it out if you don’t
know; too funny)

You know when they (I) say “Both/And”? That life is both
this, and that. It is inimitable and gripping, and sallow and challenging? That
life is “everything all at once”?
That you are both excited for your new callback and getting
dressed to get a possible melanoma removed?
Yeah. Both/And.
So, that’s happening right now. In a little while.
I went to the dermatologist about a month ago to get a
strange new mole checked out on my back. She told me that that one was nothing
to worry about; that, in fact, it’s the kind of mole you only see on fully adult
homosapiens. So, I asked, then basically, this new mole is a Rite of Passage
Mole? That I’m officially an adult human, now? Wow. Weird to have your skin
tell you it!
You, Molly Louise, you are now officially an
adult. Instead of a parade, statue, medal, or email from the Universe, you get
this nifty little mole on your back. Holler!!! Luckily, I think it’s kind of
awesome and funny, and I’m really not concerned about the aesthetics of it –
it’s not gross or repulsive or anything. It doesn’t have a satellite moon
orbiting it or have a hair growing from it. – although the Derm said that a
hair is usually a good sign that a mole is not malignant.
(It’s this an awesome
blog topic!)
“BUT,” she said. …
“This other one…” and took out the little 6-inch ruler she
kept in her white lab coat. “Well, this other one, …”
Yeah, that one’s kind of new too, in the last year for sure,
I told her.
So, today I have it taken out. Which means, they have to dig
all the way through ALL of the layers of skin into the fatty flesh below, and
take out, like a dowel in the earth, a cylinder of my skin. Yum.
It’s a small thing, it’ll only leave a centimeter of a scar,
but for a few days, until the stitched, sewn-together skin around it heals and
seals together (our bodies are amazing), no heavy lifting or working out the same way.
Meh. C’est la vie. Small price to pay for solace of mind.
Although, when I told someone when I found this out
those few weeks ago, that it was a possible skin cancer thing, they said, oh,
no big deal, that’s simple, they gauge it out. Done. … Well, I felt like that was a tad insensitive. I mean, this was coming from another young
cancer survivor!
I’m not “worrying twice,” and it is something you just take
out (I think – I don’t know – I’m not Googling anything until the doc indicates
I ought to). But, it’s still a (what’s “less than worrying”) – Ah, concerning, it’s still a concerning thing. So, I’m concerned.
So I get it checked out.
I think my Rite-of-Passage Mole might be on to something.
And, further in the Wow category, this acting
thing. Wowie wow wow, man.
It’s so fun. Sure, I talk about the isolation it offers when
you’re practicing lines alone, auditioning alone, but, the camaraderie that it
leads to, is the point. The opportunity to turn the light on in an audience, to
share something with someone else, is the point. And this is the path to that.
I’m stoked.
I have no clue if this is beginner’s luck, if anything more
will happen, if I’ll circle around the drain of “aspiring actor” for years.
But, SO WHAT.
When I think back to what it felt like on Saturday to join into the
lobby of a group of folks, stand around awkwardly in a room with
other aspirers, to have my name called, and to walk down the dark aisle of the
near-empty theater. To stand on a real stage under real lights, state my name and my piece, and
perform it. To have the director say, “Very nice. Thank you.” To then walk back
up that aisle less than two minutes later, and gather my purse and walk back
out into the amazing Berkeley Spring day?
Well, I’ll tell you:
Wow. 

adulthood · growth · service

Be of … service?

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Normal
0
0
1
600
3422
28
6
4202
11.1287

0

0
0

When I first started to hear this phrase, and became
conscious enough to hear it and its message, I said: No.
I feared that if I “gave of myself,” if I “give to others
what was freely given to me,” I would have none left. I feared that if I gave
to you what I had, there wouldn’t be any left for me.
Imagine a channel, a tube, a pipe, and into it is being
poured all the light in the world. For the first time ever, the owner of that
pipe feels what it’s like to feel grace, held, helped, hope. The owner of this
pipe, however, has blocked off the bottom. Pinched it off like a garden
hose—No, I will not let it spill out the other side. If I do, I can’t be sure
that the water will fill my portion, I can’t be sure that my side of the
channel will be full. I can’t risk not having what I have now. No.
Something happens, however, when you block up a hose like
this—what’s inside the hose begins to turn and spoil, it loses some of its
luster and charm. In the end, what you sought so hard to save and keep has
rotted because you sought so hard to
save and keep it.
I still fear that if I give of my time or attention or love, that I won’t have enough for me. Even despite all the evidence I’ve gathered as I slowly loosened my grip on the nozzle and let some of what I was receiving
open toward others. I have plenty of evidence for the benefits of giving, and yet I still get
scared.
I could also point to the outpouring of love and help I received when I was sick—and I
don’t think that depleted my friends… Well, actually some it did, and one was
able to say as much and I respected her need to back off from helping so much;
and one was unable to say she was
being depleted, and instead our relationship turned to one of resentment, and
eventual distance.
I mean, I guess there is a way where giving can be
depleting, and I think that’s where my sense-memory barges in to tell me to give
of myself means to give away myself.
But, I think this is a different manner of giving than the one intended by the
“be of service” mantra. The kind of depleting giving is one where there is ego
involved, and an expectation of something in return—approval, appreciation,
reciprocity. Or, you give in a certain way because that’s the way you think will get
you the order you want, the result you want for yourself or the other person.
The kind of help that I think I’m supposed to offer is the
kind that really is “freely given,” demanding nothing in return, truly having
no expectations of how the other will receive, or even reject, what I offer.
I don’t really know why I bring this up today, why it’s on
my mind, except perhaps my review at my job happened last week, and I’ve been
thinking about some of that feedback.
Actually, that’s probably a lot of it. A mentor of mine
intones to me near constantly about my job: Just show up and be of service.
And to her, I say, F’ service.
It is hard for me to show up and be of service at my job. I
know that it is, and it comes out in resentful ways as impatience,
procrastination, neglect of detail. “I don’t know how,” is really my answer to
her advice. I don’t know how to be of service at my job. I don’t know how to
appreciate every interaction I have. My job exhausts me. Being the front face of
every phone call, every person at the door, everyone who wanders by the front office all.day.long.–and I can’t give all the time.
I just can’t, and so I protect myself and my energies by being less than
welcoming – which is the feedback I heard last week.
So, I found an image online from Elf, the Will Farrell Christmas movie. It’s of him wearing a huge, manicly excited grin, and
the words, “I just love to smile. Smiling’s my favorite.” I pasted a copy under
the receiver of my phone, and behind my computer monitor. It reminds me to
smile, but not because of service. More because of sarcasm and irony. More
because of contempt and rebellion.
I don’t know how to be of service at my job. I know I do
tasks well enough, and so, I do. But, if there is a way to unkink my hose and
allow some of the grace I know I have and have been given to even trickle a
little more throughout the day, and not just toward my favorite people or
assignments, … well, I suppose I’m open to learning how to be of service
without getting dried out. 

adulthood · change · commitment · sex

The Runner

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Normal
0
0
1
527
3008
25
6
3694
11.1287

0

0
0

I attended the new writer’s group on Sunday that my friend put together of East Bay folks. We
were circled in plastic chairs, old-fashioned arm chairs, and couches tucked inside
the spacious two-car garage that had been repurposed into a
library/workshop/extra living room. (Only in the East Bay!) I was one among 9
of us, the only girl, and though we spent copious amounts of time arguing
whether Stephen King was a writer or a storyteller, and if David Foster Wallace
was a genius or simply mentally masturbating onto the page, eventually, we did
actually write some.
We wrote from a prompt I’d invented that morning, “You walk
into a coffee shop and etched into the linoleum are the words:….”
In response, I came up with this story. No editing, no forethought, you
just write, and when the time’s up, it’s up, and we shared around the room. I
love that part of prompt writing in a group (not that I’ve done it much), but I
love the variety of ways people go with something. The disparate styles we had
became obvious, and also, we all visibly relaxed a little after the reading was
through, as if we’d marked one another with a nod of approval, Yes, you are a
writer, I feel comfortable having you in this group. It’s funny, but it’s also
important, I think, to have that kind of respect for one another in a group like
that.
We’ll see how often I’m able to attend. But I’m very glad I
went.
The thing that’s been occurring to me about this story I
came up with spontaneously is that I am the girl in it–the one we never meet. I am the girl who gets
up in the middle of the night and leaves her lover. And then unceremoniously
dumps him.
Fiction though that story may be, the seeds of myself are
there. I was curious to find who in the story I was, since, well, I have an
opinion that we are all or some of the characters we create. I am both the
runner, and the lover calling after myself to please stay.
I think I’ve reported this anecdote before, how in college I
was in a casual “relationship” with this guy, who was by all rights a decent
fellow. One evening after we’d been in flagrante, he was holding me in his
strong early-twenty’s arms and intoned that he’d like to take me out sometime, like, to
dinner. I gasped, Why?? And he replied, because he liked me, and wanted to get
to know me.
I never called him again.
I am the runner.
I have two songs in draft form, one that
goes
Send me somebody that I can say Yes
to.
Send me someone who I can come home
to.
Just gimme somebody  somebody to make me say
Yes Yes Yes
and the other:
Married men make it so easy
To wanna misbehave
I never have to do their dishes
Just be their    sex slave
CHORUS:
I wanna be the girl who spends the
night
And doesn’t sneak out around two
I wanna be the one who stays over
To wake up next   to you
I think my ambivalence about commitment is pretty clear! And
to clarify, “Married Men” is a song, not an autobiography. It’s an impulse, a
thought, a cop-out, a desire, a fantasy, an avoidance, a way to stay stuck and
alone, since ultimately, I won’t follow through on those impulses.
So, I’ll work it out in song, in fiction, in blog. I’ll tell
you how skittish I am, I’ll let myself be surprised at how I show up in my own
work and reflect myself back to me. I’ll warm up to the sword-wielding, 2-a.m.
sneaking, rabid runner. I’ll tell her that commitment to living in one place
has only brought me health and stability; I’ll tell her that, in owning a cat for
the first time, the love I have for her I’m happy and proud to give; I’ll tell her that in the many places I’ve used
“Stability First,” I am the better for it.
And then I’ll let her go on a run. But maybe this one will
be shorter. 

acting · adulthood · change · community

Oh Envy, Have a cuppa tea & be off with yourself.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Normal
0
0
1
534
3046
25
6
3740
11.1287

0

0
0

A coworker asked me what my plans were this weekend, and
along with my regular commitments, I am also going to my friend’s poetry reading, the
first meeting of a new writing group, and a shamanic journey group I
attend monthly.
She said, Wow, I wish my plans included things like writing
groups and journey groups.
I asked what her weekend plans were, and she said, they were
having some friends over for dinner. That’s about it.
I said, Wow, I wish my plans included things like having
friends over for dinner.
I live in the strange time/place between apartment- and
house-dweller; between the young able-bodied, go-into-the-city-at-10:30pm-er (as I was invited to last night) and the slightly more cautious, actually-10:30-is-my-bedtimer. I live between the single person world, and the time of
coupledom.
And in this place, though there is a ton to “do,” I feel a
little lonely. Not for the partner, per se, but for the friendships that begin
to fall away as a single person in a paired up world. Nostalgic for the times when
a gathered group of women would carve pumpkins together on a Thursday night,
for the time when there was occasion to take photos of a gaggle of folks, and a
little longing for the camaraderie, simplicity, and elegance that “having some
friends over for dinner” could offer.
I know life has different phases, and the majority of
the things I’m doing right now (though they are communal, simply aren’t
friend-inclusive) are in support of a grander plan and dream: acting classes,
auditioning, rehearsals, practicing my lines and reading scripts. I know that
this is an exciting part of my path, and, believe me, I am *stoked* to get to
do these things, but I also recognize that a shift is occurring. I am on the
blank page after one chapter has ended, and before the other has begun.
My friends will be at the writing group, the poetry reading,
and the shamanic journey group. These are people who I can have hours’ long
conversations with, and last week, did have coffee with one of them, but, I
don’t know – there’s a zest of communal living that I haven’t replaced from the
days of late-night group dancing and diner-ing.
Perhaps all things in order and in time, but I’m just
noticing. I notice that I’d like to be someone who goes to dinner at friends’
houses. Maybe I just want to be able to invite people over to dinner, like I had been able to in my 1-bedroom in the city, but not in my studio in Oakland. I know that’s a part of it too. 
It’s interesting, isn’t it, that the grass is always
greener?
I have plenty of people I consider friends—I’d just
like to see them more often. And apparently, in groups. (I also recognize that I
don’t want to be your token single friend in that group to whom you say things like, “Have you tried internet dating?” For more on this, see this article my
friend sent me!)
That said, there’s a viewing party for ONCE upon a time I’m
attending in a few Sundays at a friend’s; there’s a birthday party at my
friend’s house in Discovery Bay next month that will bring out some of my most
cherished friends and their families;
and, anyway, this navel-gazing blog is boring me. 😉
I have some people to go see, followed by shopping for a
jewel-toned top for Monday’s new headshots, and a facial to help those
photos come out awesome. Then line-learning, vegetable roasting, and poetry
attending. My life is certainly full—now if it could also be a little more
stocked with you.

adulthood · authenticity · choice · courage · sex

The Wrestler

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Do you ever notice how Jews tend to answer a question with a
question?
Why shouldn’t we answer with a question?
Call it the Jew in me, call it the Libra, call it the
overactive thinking machine tucked behind my eyeballs, but I question things a
lot. And repeatedly.
Little though I know about Judaism and even littler about
other religions, Jews are purported to “wrestle and grapple” with G-d. This is our purpose—not necessarily to obey a god, as perhaps some religions require,
but to wrestle, argue, question, mull, and ponder.
I have a date with the 25 y.o. on Saturday. We haven’t seen
one another since our “State of the Union” conversation last week when it was
decided that we don’t see a relationship happening, but we genuinely enjoy one
another’s company and also are very attracted to one another.
This led us to the conclusion that we won’t see one another
less, and be in the ambiguity of friends but not friends. Until one of us
doesn’t gel with the ambiguity anymore.
I think that one is me.
See, I sort of know this scenario: Now that we’ve agreed to
be more “casual,” that probably means sex, which we haven’t had yet. In my
experience, here’s how casual sex goes: You have good to great (and
occasionally lackluster and regretful) sex with someone a few times. Maybe
twice, maybe three times. And soon, since the investment isn’t really there,
the communication begins to wane, you text one another less and less, until
soon you don’t communicate at all, and sort of fall out of the orbit of one
another’s lives.
So, for me, in my own experience (and I know this isn’t
everyone’s), casual sex = the end of a potential friendship. It just does.
What I wrestle with right now, then, is how important is
that potential friendship to me? How important is this person in the mosaic of
my life? For now, not very, but as I said, we do have a lot to talk about and a
lot I’d like to continue to talk about – beyond all the theater intel I
want to glean.
So that’s not a very good measuring stick, then. Because
it’s ambiguous.
Let’s try another model I use to tease out information from
myself.
In meditation, I sometimes go to this long dining table in a
small house. It’s a large, wooden, old-time crafted, dark stained table with divets and
dents in it. A long-loved and -used table. Seated around this table are all the
disparate parts of myself I’ve been able to gather so far: the brain, the nymph, the baker, the child, the
sorrow, the jokester, the anger, love, vanity, warrior, healer, to name several.
So, I asked this gathered group: All in favor of sleeping
with the 25 y.o.?
Up go the hands of the nymph and the brain.
All in favor of not
sleeping with the 25 y.o.?
Up go the hands of every other entity at the table.
Hmmm. … Well, nymph, yes, of course, you lovely and talented
minx you. I expect as much, and that’s okay. You’re at the table because you’re
valued, and your vote has been heard.
Brain—I get it. He’s a wildly smart guy. The interest in
long and winding pillow talk; the desire to be in close contact and proximity
to someone who fires synapses you rarely use. I get it. I know you miss that
fuel.
But… everybody else
says we don’t want to do this.
So, still, this hasn’t been the clearest exercise in coming
to a conclusion.
Finally, I ask the big question: Which action supports my
highest good? 
And thus, it is clear to me, in this situation, to not sleep with
him. If we can forge a friendship, great, and if not, I tried.
Because as I reported, I had some pretty great casual sex
recently (well, a few months ago now)—with casual sex as my intention and feeling very good and happy with my
behavior and outcome. And, don’t get me wrong, when I can get it on the regular, please, I’m down. But otherwise, I’m okay without it. Sometimes I
miss it, the connection of two bodies. But I also had some disappointing casual
sex recently, and, well, not all sex is great.
I have previews that this sex could be great. I really think
it would be. And I know the vixen inside me is just mewling to get some
sexy-time on. To wield the tools and tricks we’ve learned, to sharpen them
against someone who is well-matched, to exude Level 10 sexuality that I keep to
a 4 (max) in regular life outside the bedroom.
I know it would be fun. But I know it doesn’t support my
highest good, and my highest goals for myself. It doesn’t undermine them, per
se, but it simply continues a pattern of behavior that isn’t the most
fulfilling—and I think what I’m saying is that I’d like to be fulfilled. And
therefore “filled” by someone where there is a mutual understanding of
continued partnership and exploration.
I also know that I have often and many times been involved
with folks and situations that my “dining table” wasn’t fully behind—and I’ve
felt that … loss? emptiness? disconnect. I know this road.
I am a wrestler. I grapple and wrestle and tease and shimmy
my way into and out of every eventuality. And though I have run the gamut of
“pros/cons,” my ultimate guide can only be my highest good. Even when it means
I miss a savory, delectable, oh-so-mouth-watering meal.

abundance · adulthood · change · growth · love

Progress, Not Perfection…

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

When I have clarity of vision, pretty amazing things tend to
happen.
About 2 years ago, when working my way through the Calling
in The One book, I decided it was time to
get that 2nd bedside table to “energetically” be more inviting to a partner. The one I had on my side is sort of shabby/chic, wooden, painted white, with a little storage and
soft, almost country structure. Very soon thereafter, I wandered into a garage
sale down the block – and wouldn’t you know, there is the perfectly
complementary bedside table – different shape, but same country feel, wooden,
painted white, same height too.
Over last summer, I decided it was time to upgrade my
ever-chipping, ever-depleting plateware and bowl collection. I had one bowl left. And a stack of gray, unappealing plates
that I’d bought for cheap thinking they’d be “sleek,” but were instead just… gray. Very
soon thereafter, I was in Cole Valley, waiting for my band to
play at the street fair, and lo, there was a stack of multicolored, almost
Fiesta ware bowls and a stack of bright blue plates to go with them—for free.
Within the last two months, a man was crossing the street in
front of my car as I drove home from work. He was dressed “smartly,” wearing a sweater over a button-down shirt, well-fitting jeans, and real shoes, not
sneakers. I said to myself, I want someone who wears clothes like that. (Though, sure, I would have barfed at such a preppy [pulled-together??] look in the past.)  This wasn’t the first time I’d thought that, as I
noticed men milling about the world recently. And, you guessed it, very soon
thereafter, I met this new boy, who wears
smart clothing, fitting the above description to a T.
So, point? Well, my coworker would smirk at my “manifest-y”
meanderings, but my point is more that when I have a vision of what I want,
more often than not (and so often with housewares!), I get it very quickly and
with much ease.
I took a personality test about a year ago, the
Meyers-Briggs, with a friend who actually processes these tests for a living.
Part of the reason for my wanting to do this type of test was to find out what
I “should do” with my life—if there were places and arenas in the world that
would benefit most from the assets I already have, the things that come easy to me. And wouldn’t you know, for
“appropriate jobs,” my particular personality type listed all kinds of artsy
things (writer, painter, actor), also counselor and clergy, all of which I’ve contemplated in the past.
What it also told me about me about my “type” were the
pitfalls, and how to counter them. How to counter idealistic, magpie, not detail-oriented leanings? 

“Focus, Prioritize,
Follow-through.”
Eesh. Yuck.
But, see all my above Manifesty moments? These were ALL born
of something called “focus.” I had clarity. I knew what I wanted, and made
myself open to receive it by participating in the world.
One of the final meditations at my annual meditation retreat
in Napa a few years ago left me with the following directive: Use Your Time
Efficiently.
I’ve been SO F*ING BUSY, it feels. I’m doing and going and
participating, but I’m not focused or prioritized, so I don’t get done the
things I really want to do; I don’t move forward in those places.
Be it career advancement, monologue learning, song writing.
Gardening.
There are areas in my life I want to deepen. I want to strengthen
the roots of these priorities. I want to make forward motion with them. Which
means, I want to make time for them,
real, expansive, focused, invested time.
Running hither and thither is great. My life is FULL. So
freaking full, I don’t know my ass (non-essentials) from my elbow (essentials),
and, as example, I spent way more money on take-out food this month, since I
haven’t had any time for food shopping and cooking—something which actually does
feed me, in all the ways.
Focus. Prioritize. Follow-through.
If they came naturally to me, I would have honed them
already. They don’t. A personality test, and 32 years of knowing my own
personality have proven that these are not inherent.
However, if I want to
live the life that is more about quality than quantity, I need to (strike
that!) – I would like to encourage myself in learning how to do this. I know
it’s possible. My free amazing couch that I sit on right now is proof of vision
equaling results. But, in order to even have time to let the dust settle in the
glass, I have to sit still, listen closely, be open to asking for help in how on earth one “focuses, prioritizes, and follows-through,” and
most of all, allow myself progress, not perfection. 

adulthood · family · forgiveness · grief · love · softness

major malfunction

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Normal
0
0
1
717
4087
34
8
5019
11.1287

0

0
0

The quote from Full Metal Jacket came to me this morning as I was putting away my
(clean) dishes (thank you, Homejoy, for your Facebook coupon!): What is my major
malfunction? Why have I gone so far off the reservation with this dating situation?
What is my primary malfunction? Primary…
That’s when the trap door opened, I fell through my crazy, into the heart of truth. And I began to cry. From realization and long
delayed-grief.
Some of you may know by now that my mother suffered from
manic depression as I was growing up—still does, but went on medication about 8
years ago, around the time I got sober, in fact. She told me a few years back
that she was terrified of loving me fully because she was scared of the depths of her feelings, that they would overwhelm her. She told me that when I was growing up, she would spend
30 minutes locked in her bathroom crying every morning before emerging into the
day. This, I remember. Staring at the closed bathroom door every morning, listening to her
cry, and having no idea why, if she would stop, if she would come out, what I
could do. She said that she just thought this was normal—this was her normal at least, and it was the only way of being
she knew.
The way this manifested in our relationship was that I never
knew when she would turn. When she would be the mom who was there for me, and
when she would click into mania and be unreachable in her heights, or click
into depression and be unreachable in her depths.
This, was not a recipe for trust.
My father, as we all know, was a volatile man, doing nothing
to help the bonds of trust and love cement into something benevolent,
supportive, and foundational.
What I saw this morning is that the ambiguity of
dating targets right into that major malfunction with laser precision.
I don’t blame her, and have long since forgiven her. But
apparently, I still haven’t really healed what it meant to attempt to establish
bonds of love on a fault line. Not knowing what your feelings are about me… I
get as crazy as you’ve seen me this week. Perspective, reality, confidence,
hobbies, work, all get ousted as I try to figure out what it means, because if I can figure out if the
fault line is about to crack, then I can get out of dodge. I can shut down, run
away, shove you away.
That was my previous M.O. for sure. I will shove you away
before you get close, before I have to “figure out” if you’re trustworthy. It
was not worth the pain of waiting to see if I could. Better to bomb the whole
base, just in case there was a sniper in there aimed at me.
So, shove you away. That meant any number of things,
including not dating, only have casual relationships, going after taken men.
My other way of being was to fall quickly into a
relationship, which is how my two long-term (read: 6 months) relationships
began. Express interest, have sex nearly immediately, you’re now in a
relationship.
There wasn’t ambiguity in that.
I didn’t have to figure out (then) if you liked me, if you
were gonna hurt me—we were “boyfriend/girlfriend,” and had
great sex. It only came later (read: by month 4, and certainly by 6) that I had
to question something different: if I
liked you.
So, it is believable, understandable, and more than a little
compassionable that an ambiguous dating situation would set off an atom bomb in
my head. Though, ultimately, it’s stemming from my heart, but more ultimately,
it’s stemming from my head, and the recreation of an old story and an old way
of coping with the uncertainty of human relationships.
I have very little dating experience past the first date. It
has always either gone: “Ciao, buddy, thanks for the latte,” or “Which side of
the bed is yours?”
People I know talk ALL THE TIME about “living the in the grey,” “not figuring things
out,” “relaxing into the experience,” and I want to spit a poisoned dart into
their over-eager eye. Fuck you people. The grey was a place, growing up, that
was riddled with landmines and Blitzkreigs. The grey place was one where you
never knew if you would be okay, ever.
And now, of course, how fitting, I’m being asked to once
again live in the grey—or at least get a rental application—but to live there differently. To live there, visit there, try it out there in the
grey, because that’s where most of life is lived, and I want to live in life.
To be in the grey differently, means to call upon my own foundations of trust
that I have established with myself and with the people I have chosen to love
as friends in my life—Not all of these friendships went the distance, but they
were worth pursuing. And didn’t cause any agida. So, it’s a deeper love and a deeper trust we’re working on.
And it’s probably not even with a person, unless that person
is me. It’s probably about developing, deepening, cementing trust with a
benevolence. And from the foundation of that relationship, will I be able to withstand whatever the Richter scale
throws at me. Especially if it’s reading 0, and telling me it’s safe to stay put.

acceptance · adulthood · anger · art · faith · frustration · gratitude · progress · recovery

Cancer.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

About a month ago, I was diagnosed with Leukemia. And my
whole life changed.
I don’t know what this change is, was, will be, but I know
that I am in several ways entirely different than I was. The way, at least
right now, that I see things are entirely new. And profoundly grateful. I
almost died. And yet, I didn’t.
We each get this each day – I got this each day, prior to this happening. I got the chance to
understand that life was precious, but I didn’t, really. I understood it,
but to really feel it? Well, it’s
different now,
and it brings up a host of other questions. Am I allowed to still watch Ben Stiller movies? Am I allowed to spend a day on the couch? Will
I now stop stopping myself short on all my varied art projects, and allow
myself to follow through on anything
that I’ve started? I have no idea.
I’d like to think that part of this “change” – for lack of a
better term for “life altering sudden tragic happening” – will indeed move me
toward being more in my art, more in my life. I’d like to believe that part of
this whole thing is a very nasty kick-upside-the-head lesson in not living for
tomorrow. That I’m being given the chance to very acutely see that life is
short and tenuous, and so I ought to embrace the talents that I have, and finally
let myself explore them fully so that I might share them with you.
I’d like to believe that there are lessons here. Otherwise,
what the fuck.
I’d like to believe that the Universe or my Higher Power
couldn’t — for some reason completely unknown to me – send me a postcard, or a
dream, or a message on Facebook. That for some reason this lesson had to be learned hard, and fast, and
therefore more gentle methods of smoothing a rock down to its shiny parts were
not available to this massive Power.
I’ve been out of the hospital for a week now, and I will go
back in next Monday for another round of chemo. This will be the 2nd
in a series of, likely, 5 treatments. The words that I’ve had to learn over
this month scare the crap out of me. I don’t want to use words like chemo,
nausea, pain meds, pneumonia. I don’t want to hear “How bad is the pain on a
scale of 1 to 10,” or, “It’s time for your shot,” or “Well, we expect this.”
I’ve oscillated since I’ve been out of the hospital between
those few stages of grief – anger, grief, acceptance. Often within the same
minute. When I was in the hospital, there wasn’t time for anything except acceptance. This is happening. Period. Go with it. And, despite
what you may think, it’s really f’ing busy in the hospital with people coming
in and out at all hours of the day and night, throwing information or
medication at you. There’s not really time to process, space to absorb and
consolidate what has been happening to me.
And so, being home now, I’m getting the chance to experience
what I couldn’t while basically holding my breath for 3 weeks. I’m getting to
realize the enormity of what happened. The slow, marinating, seeping
reality – I almost died. The nurse told me that I had 49% leukemic cells in my
blood when I came into the hospital – WITH STREP THROAT – and that if I hadn’t
come in, I would have died within two weeks. I would have gotten a bleed,
likely in my brain, and I would have just died. No one would have known – no one would have known why. Relapse?
Suicide? Understanding this fact has begun to lead me to know that I need help
in holding the space for all this – and yesterday I contacted a cancer support
group.
AND, I have to tell you, I don’t want to be someone who needs a cancer support group – I shouldn’t have
motherfucking cancer in order to need such a group. A month ago, this was unfathomable.
This morning, I read my last Morning Pages entry from the week
before I went into the hospital. I haven’t written morning pages since then, I
was too sick, and then too hospitalized. And so I read them, and I see myself
talking about how my throat really is starting to hurt. About how I went to the
art store Flax and got new pens and a notebook and talked to the woman in the
back about different types of pressed paper – hot press versus cold, what would
be good for the art I want to do. About the café I’d emailed with the month
before about putting up a show in their space, and how he wanted to do
November, but I simply wasn’t ready, as it was the end of September at the
time.
I’d written about the clothing I’d bought for cheap at good
thrift shops, and the flying lesson I was scheduled for, which ended up being
the day I went into the ER. I wrote about being excited, about art that I would
make. About missing my family, and wanting to go home for Thanksgiving to see
them.
In some ways, it feels like reading a journal from junior
high, it feels so long ago. And yet, it’s all still me. And that’s something
that I want to take away from this too. This process is going to be HARD, challenging, painful, difficult, and yet, I’m still
me. As I was writing my first Morning Pages this morning since that last entry,
I was inwardly elated to see my handwriting hadn’t changed. That major facts of
who I am have not changed. That things that were important to me then, “before
cancer,” are still things that are important to me now. – art, family,
adventure.
I’ve been blasted with some of the nastiest chemicals, shorn down
to the barest slices of my body … but my handwriting is still the same.
I could go into the ways in which gratitude has become this
sort of well of tears behind my eyes at all times. I could talk about how just
waking up this morning feels like a gift. But I don’t want to today, really. I could
list the thanks and the inundation of love and support and care, but that’s not
what this blog is about this morning, at least. It’s not a love fest, it’s just
a truth fest. About where I am this very day, at this very time, arguing and
stamping and shaking a fist at the sky with WHY in the m’f’in hell couldn’t you
have made this a little bit of a gentler lesson? About how I feel like I’m some
sort of icon now, with people telling me all the time what an inspiration
you are, when I’ve had diarrhea for 3 out
of the last 4 weeks. I’ve asked people what on earth that even means, an inspiration to what? What have I inspired in
you? What am I inspiring you to do? I haven’t done anything except lived.
I get to be bitter about it. And I get to be amazingly
thankful to get to be bitter about it –
to be alive enough to have emotions enough to get to scorn about it.
It is surely true, the love and support I’ve gotten. And
yet, there’s a part of me that feels angry that I even have a situation in
which to receive such love and support.
I know people love me. Couldn’t I have had my 31st birthday at a
restaurant with them, instead of in a hospital bed? Couldn’t I have learned to
get out of the way of my own creativity and drive and lust for life in a
different, gentler way? Couldn’t I have gotten to see my family by flying East
for Thanksgiving, instead of them flying West to hold my hand while my hair
falls out?
I’m grateful for this blog – this tempestuous blog that
gives me the chance to be honest in every way. Which I want to use to
springboard to something else, to write in another venue, maybe one that’s
paid. I’m glad that I get to write here, as someone told me, as I speak – that if I
write the way I talk, they said, I’m surely a great writer. I don’t know how much that is
true, but somehow the cancer lets me see it a little more clearly. And perhaps begin to accept it. I want to explore my talent more – because there simply is
more there. I want to push into it, and I want to share it.
I swear I would have gotten there without this whole cancer
thing, but I guess I really didn’t have a choice in this one. 

acceptance · adulthood · family · fear · generosity · recovery · relationships · the middle way · truth

People are Not Projects.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Damnit. There goes my favorite hobby. What will I do with my
afternoons, now?
I’ve heard the phrase before, and it recurred to me this
morning. My mom sent me an email back on Monday, qualifying why she’d replied
so “vehemently” on Friday that she wanted me under NO circumstances to tell her
whether I had the genome for Alzheimer’s, if I were to get the genetic mapping
thing I said I was maybe possibly going to do someday.
Even before she emailed me on Monday, I got the chance to
work through some of my anger at her refusal for clarity, her refusal to do things the
way I’d do them, or the way I’d want her to do them.
I even got to see that there is perhaps a part of me that is
in fear that she will have it. Watching what she went through with her mom, I can’t imagine it. Though I know I’d have the resources internal and external to do the best I could, if she does.
On Monday, she wrote me back and said, as I knew, that her mom was
around the same age my mom is now when she began to show signs of it, and that
she’s “very frightened.” I was amazed that my mother could let herself admit
that.
I wrote her back that, of course, I understand, and will respect
her feelings and wishes around this. Obviously.
And so, I’m reminded that people are not projects. She is
not on this earth, this lifetime, for me to fix her. As I’m also reminded
often, people are not broken, and I don’t need to fix them. She isn’t broken.
She is human, like me, like you. I have faults and assets, she has faults and
assets. Mainly, those faults are just calcified fears and defense mechanisms.
And it’s not up to me to fix them. They
are not “problems.” They just are. They are part of the map that is my mom.
They are part of the challenges and opportunities she has in this lifetime. And
it is part of my own challenge this lifetime to leave her be.
This is new behavior. Not alien, but new. We, I, grew up
enmeshed with her, her feelings were my own, and I tended to and acquiesced to
and modified myself in order to attend to her feelings. It was my own defense
mechanism. And, it was also in some ways what was needed. She was an
undiagnosed manic depressive, self-medicating with prescription and non-prescription tranquilizers
and uppers. Her feelings and mood swings were uncontainable, palpable, and able to wash a small
child overboard the ship of normalcy. So, I learned how to stand by the
rigging. I learned how to read the waves, to anticipate them, to ensure that
things were precisely as they needed to be. I learned to ensure life was easier
for her when she was in her clinical depression by not having or voicing or
owning my needs. I learned to ensure that she not retreat into that state by
allowing her manic times free reign, and stand tensely in the wings of her
life, egging her on – because mania meant some more of her, but not really. It
just meant she moved more quickly in her neuroses. And was hard to be around
then.
That was probably harder. It was like a live wire. Every
vibrantly theatrical gesture and every squeal of delight was like a hammer to my heart, knowing
that it was inauthentic, fleeting, and often, embarrassing. More than the
typical teen angsty, my parents are lame kind. More like, this person isn’t aware of herself and how big she can be, and I’m sorry she’s hijacked your conversation/this movie theather/…our vacation.
I went on a trip with her a few years ago to Sedona. I’d
begun to heal some of my own self-destructive patterns, and this was one of the
first times she and I were getting to spend any significant time together. It
didn’t go well.
Diagnosed, and newly (doctor prescribed) medicated as she
now was, she is/was still my mom. Even today, even though the swings have
lessened, the grooves in the thought patterns and behaviors are still there,
engrained over a lifetime, and I’ll suddenly find myself talking to a weepy child where a minute before stood a fierce New Yorker. But, in Sedona, we decided to do one of those Pink
Jeep tours, where they take you out in a jeep into the gorgeous red rock
landscape.
My mom had to be the entertainment. There were maybe 6 of us
in the back of the jeep, and as my mom continued to make herself more and more
“heard” and “seen” by this group of strangers, as she put on her mask of entertainer
– witty, loud, invasive – I began to feel myself shrinking in her wake. I began
to notice that I was doing what I’d always done, and detach from the dramatic
entrance of my mom’s persona. I didn’t like it.
I didn’t like that I was reacting that way, and so instead,
I began to get sullen and angry. She
picked up on the anger. And she couldn’t understand why – she’d been being who
she’d always been, acting (double meaning intended) as she always had, why was
I mad with her? I didn’t answer her. I didn’t know what was the “right” way to
answer that in my new recovery language – I simply said that it had more to do
with me than with her, and that was about it. She didn’t like this answer; I
knew it was true, but I didn’t like it either. We’re a “processy” – or we had
been – kind of pair. (She is a shrink, after all…) And I wasn’t going to or able to process this with her.
What is there to process? You’re not being the mom I want
you to be? You’re behaving so falsely, and invading these folks’ space? THIS
JEEP TOUR IS NOT ABOUT YOU?
No, I couldn’t say those things. There is and was the truth
that it does have more to do with me
than with her. How able I am to accept and love my mom as and who she is
without trying to change her. Without needing to be right. And without pitying her.
There is the truth that people are not projects, and that
she is not broken. There is also the magnanimous truth that my mother is also
brilliant, witty, stylish, and bold. Yes, she is also desperately scared of
everything, self-defeatest, and paralytically despairing. She is all of these
things. (She’s also a Gemini, if that helps.)
My mother is a human, with places she falls short of the
ideal, like me, like you; places where she excels, like me, like you. And, in
the end, just wants to feel loved, and at peace. Like me. And like you.