nakedjen

When the Going Gets Tough

The tough go to Sundance. 

A little over a month ago, on October 12, Dave said, if we remember, "I'm done."  My world, if we all remember, turned upside down.  Or so I felt and believed at the time.  The word divorce was not in my vocabulary and I honestly could not believe that the man I professed to love truly, madly, deeply with every fiber of my being could possibly be done with me.  How could anyone, especially my husband, be done with me?  Ego, much?  Um, yeah.

One night while I was taking sweet refuge in the pod at Gwendomama's house, in a moment of "screw Dave and his 'I'm Done' business" decided to apply for a job at the Sundance Film Festival.  A real job.  Not a volunteer job. 

Well, that has set off a course of events over the last few weeks that has, in itself, been rather interesting and dramatic and topsy turvy all on its own.  Here's the abridged version:

Did she get the job?  I don't know did she?  Um, well, she hasn't heard anything.  Oh, wait, they called!  They interviewed her.  For three different positions.  It all went very well.  They sounded enthusiastic.  But she hasn't heard anything.  At all.  WTF?  What about the dogs?  Her sister said she could bring the dogs!  Wait, her sister says she can't bring the dogs!  But Sundance was enthusiastic!  What will happen if she gets a job offer and can't take the dogs??  The dogs are most important.  Her father says to "just get rid of the god damned dogs!"  There's a woman who loves to rent to people with pets?!  She has a house!  Hooray!  But she still hasn't heard from Sundance.  Does she really want to move to SLC if she hasn't heard from Sundance?  But wait?  There's another woman!  With a tea shop.  And a house!  And it's free!  Wow!!!  Move and just go and isn't the Universe wonderful??  Oh wait, it's not free.  And the house isn't so good for the dogs.  So perhaps she should take the first house that was offered?  Can't.  It's been rented.  Now what??  Still haven't heard from Sundance.  But her friend did.  He didn't get a position.  Oh no.  Maybe she's not meant to go to Utah at all.  Look at options in Santa Cruz.  It's all so expensive!  Can she figure out how to squeeze the dogs into that one bedroom on Riverside for $1150?  And how will she really afford that?  Oh dear.  Um, Sundance called.  They have a possible job.  Please call them back!  She got the job!!  And the landlord that loves dogs also rented her a better house!  So she's moving to Salt Lake City.  But if she's starts babbling about green jello molds and mini marshmallows, someone damn well promise to come and do an intervention, STAT.

I'm thankful, truthfully, that the dogs and I have a place to go.  A home.  A home that is welcoming to dogs!  With a big fenced back yard.  That is just a few blocks walk from a wonderful dog park.  And a block from a great yoga studio, a great independent film movie theatre and Salt Lake's only naturopathic doctor and wellness center.  I chose my neighborhood carefully, as you can tell.

I am still very sad to be leaving Santa Cruz.  It is my home and has been for the last 20 years.  But I can always come back.  I don't have to stay in Salt Lake City forever.  But change is good every once in a while.  Adventure and new beginnings are always a good thing for the soul. 

And so begins the next journey in the adventure that is my life.  We leave at the end of December. 

Good Grief

You all are going to think I'm completely nuts.  Perhaps, I am?  I suppose if I actually went to see my doctor we might have a valid answer to that question.  But I don't even go see her.  I just leave random messages for her and she calls me back and then I call her back and voila, I've got prescriptions at the drug store.

Back to the nuts. 

Last night, after that Day of Divorce Sale that we held here at the house, I went with Dave, yes DAVE, to the Saturn for dinner and then to a concert.  And not just any concert.  Keith Greeninger was playing a solo show at the Kuumbwa Jazz Center.  Keith Greeninger, for those of you who are new to this blog, is a fabulous folk musician who played at our wedding.  He's been one of our closest friends ever since.

I know that there's a possibility that I'm leaving Santa Cruz soon, so I wanted to go to this concert.  I thought that perhaps Dave would want to go, too.  Because, well, it's Keith.  So I wrote to Keith and his beautiful wife, Susan, and told them what was up with us and asked if we could come.  Yes, "we".  I know, completely crazy.

Susan and Keith were very sad to hear our news.  Very sad.  But of course they wanted us both to come to the concert.  So our names were added to the guest list, just like always, and that is how we found ourselves sitting dead center in the second row at last night's show.

Keith has some amazing songs.  I have some absolute favorites among them.  And there are some that he specifically played at our wedding.  I can't say for certain that he was playing specific songs last night with the hope that it might provide some healing medicine for our relationship, but what I feel pretty darn certain that he was playing specific songs last night for me.

And when he played them?

Sobs.  And more sobs.  Snot everywhere.  If you'd been a stranger at that concert and looked over at me you'd have thought my dog had died.  I was a big fat puddle.  And sitting next to me was a very stoic man. 

People, I want to share that the concert last night for me was actually really "good grief".  The songs triggered so many deep emotions that I really needed to reach and let go.  I needed to sob, I needed to have Keith sing and hear those words and let them touch me in a way that only seeing him live can do.  I needed that music to feed my very hungry soul. 

Having the man that I have previously referred to on this blog as DearSweetDave sitting next to me so stoic and unmoved was truly revealing for me.  He is no longer my husband.  He really has let go and moved on.  Because the DearSweetDave that I knew and loved would not have been able to sit there next to his sobbing wife and not offer her a napkin for her runny nose, or a hug, or ask her if she was really okay? 

He would have done all of that and more.  But last night, he did not.  And that is all there is to know. 

sold!

phew. that's done. for today at least. in the midst of the divorce sale my landlord showed up and he's been doing "improvements" all day. gah. like i don't have enough to deal with? why today does he need to be doing improvements to the house? he says it is so it is ready to rent on december 1. but i haven't even moved out yet?? and honestly, it was just stressful having him here all day while i had every one of my belongings strewn all over the yard, the garage, and even the house...as we had people come in the house if they were interested in some of the larger pieces of furniture.

i have spent the WHOLE DAY with dave. it was exhausting. i have no idea how much money we made. we are not doing this tomorrow but will do this again next weekend as it looks, honestly, like we didn't sell a thing. but we sold A LOT OF STUFF.

goodness. 

i had one freak out moment when i opened a box and it was FULL of wedding momentos. our programs, our invites, our save the dates, all of it. it all feels like a big fat lie. i don't know when it won't. i honestly on most days feel like i wasted the last eight years. and i know intellectually that probably isn't true. it's just how i feel right now. like i gave my heart and soul to this marriage, but for what? pain and agony???

anyway, i have to go.  the dogs have been inside all day.  they need a walk and food and love. 

just like their mama.  i need a walk and love, too.

One Breath At A Time

i started the lexapro today. i'm way too sensitive because colors are MUCH BRIGHTER and i'm all jittery. gah. sounds are also MUCH LOUDER. and i feel even more sensitive and fragile if that is even possible. how could that be possible??

so here is plan 1,256. because, obviously we must be up to at least that number by now, right? i think so. it is an old plan, actually. i think we're coming full circle. gah.

i am only moving to SLC if i have an actual job and a house. and until i have those two things secured and finalized, i'm not going. if december 1 roles around and i have neither of those things, then all my stuff (and yes, i'm keeping things!) will go into storage and i'll just hit the road with the dogs and go visit my friends. i'll meet pinky and yvonne in boulder and continue from there. again, this is IF i don't have a job and a house secured.

so i'm just leaving it all up to the universe. how very nakedjen of me, huh? and i honestly, am. i'm not rolling over and spending the days in a fetal position (although honestly that sounds quite tempting), but i'm just tired of trying to make plans only to have them thwarted! or tossed upside down. or on their head.

i'm tired.  i'm spent.  i'm cried out. 

so universe?  i'm yours.  send me what you've got. 

i do believe that with all this painful preparation it's got to be something fanfuckingtastic, yes??  absolutely, yes! 

but again, i'm trying my best to have no real expectations. just leave my heart completely open and see what unfolds before me.

that's plan 1,256.  and we all know it is subject to change.

Craptastic Day, Alice!

My day started out lovely enough.  Honestly, it did.  With a walk with the dogs and a fan of Nakedjen.  How can that be a bad thing?  It can't really.  It was a good thing.  A very good thing.

But it deteriorated in ways I don't wish to even talk about from there.  And this whole having no phone and no Internet access at my house is for the birds.  I'm skulking about in coffeehouses using up the free wireless this city seems very fond of passing along to its very caffeinated citizens.

That good news I mentioned?  Not such good news.  Life keeps shifting.  It's like I'm on a ice float adrift from the Titanic.  I can't decide if it's better that I landed on the ice or if I should have just stayed on the sinking ship!

My doctor called in a new prescription for me today.  Lexapro!  Gah.  I do not take drugs.  But I am going to take this little white pill and see what happens. 

Perhaps, I should say, I feel like Alice.  Her world and perspective was always changing, she was never quite sure of her footing, and well, only the caterpillar and Cheshire Cat seemed to really know what was what.

We have some Hookah Clubs here in Santa Cruz now.  Perhaps I should go and see if there's a caterpillar with some wisdom to share?

A Wedding Dress and Fine China

When I first met DearSweetDave on the September day all those years ago I had recently extracted myself from another relationship that had lasted for more than 15 years.  The end of that relationship, a relationship and friendship that I honestly believed would last forever, came quite swiftly.  He also drove off with nearly all my things in the back of his truck to Colorado.

For the first few years of my relationship with DearSweetDave, there was an ongoing joke about how I used to have X or Y, but it now lived in Colorado.  It could be as simple as a certain CD or as complicated as an entire set of copper pots and pans, but with the exception of Clyde and clothes that were only fit for a girl to wear, pretty much everything dashed off to Colorado never to be seen again.

I found myself wishing yesterday as I looked at our very fine china, the china we chose so carefully together when we were making plans to be husband and wife, when we were registering for wedding gifts, when we were crafting what our future just might be, that DearSweetDave would just grab it all and drive away in the middle of the night and leave me standing there in an empty house with just Buddha and Stella.

I'm not sure if the pain of that would be less or more than the pain I am experiencing now, because, honestly, I'm living this pain now and the pain from my last relationship is over ten years old and of course pain has a way of healing and easing over time. 

There's the matter of my wedding dress.  A dress that, like the fine china, was chosen with quiet and deliberate certainty.  I was only going to wear the White Dress once.  I had a White Dress Syndrome, actually, and because I had been certain, before meeting DearSweetDave and truly trusting him with my delicate heart that I was never going to be married at all, never going to wear a White Dress, never going to have a wedding, the White Dress held for me quite a lot of significance.  Perhaps more than it should have held.  But there you have it.

And now, there it hangs.  In my closet.  And I'm not quite sure what to do with it.  It actually is a little too big at the moment thanks to this Trauma Trim Diet I've been on for the last month.  It is an exquisite dress.  I chose that dress above all others because it truly represented me.  And yes, I know, it's just a Big White Dress.  But it was therapy for me.  It eased all my Big White Dress Syndrome fears and I knew, on that day especially, that I was truly a Bride and, more importantly, that I was absolutely a Wife.

Today, I am neither a wife nor a bride.  I am about to be divorced.  And single.  And do I really want to be some ghost of Mrs. Haversham dragging her old wedding dress around because she simply can not let go of what was supposed to be, the dashed dreams, the hopes of what might have been? 

Do I want to have that fine china there with rotting wedding cake reminding me each day that DearSweetDave has chosen someone else?  That he loves someone other than me?  That I am not his only true love?  That the dress, the china, the champagne flutes were all just props in our drama while DearSweetDave discovered that marriage to me only caused him deep and unfathomable unhappiness?

I loved him.  Truly, madly, deeply.  With all that I was and all that I had, but it just wasn't enough.  A wedding dress and fine china will only remind me of that.  I think I need to leave those behind, as well. 

There's No Need To Worry Any More...

  Another Version of Saturday Morning 
  Originally uploaded by GraceD.

Grace could charge big fat bucks for the food, warmth and hospitality she provides at ChezGrace.  Plus you get daily therapy sessions.  And you have the sweetest Jack Russell Terrier in the entire universe to make sure that you feel the love, if your own two dogs are not holding up their end of the bargain on either end of the comfy couch.

Not to mention all the great mojo that just seeps from the walls, the floors, the very air that you breathe.

I breathed a lot while I was there.  In and out and right into a new me.

And everything, and I mean everything, is going to be all right.

Wise Words

     "To stand in your now, looking forward with deliberate intent and       anticipation of what is to come, is infinitely more satisfying than to       stand in your now, looking back, retracing your steps as to how you got       where you are." - Abraham

I've got news.  I'm waiting to share all the details.  However, I'll share that I am deliberately looking forward with delicious anticipation of what is to come.

I am very loved and so very blessed.

I'm Just Looking For A Home

I have spent the larger part of my day very cozy at Chez Grace with both dogs and have been searching the Internets for a quite temporary home for me and Buddha and Stella in Park City, Utah.  Or even Salt Lake City.

When I decided that I would go and work for Sundance, I first checked with my sister, NeverNakedBeth, and asked her, quite kindly, as an older sister would ask her younger sister who has two children and a husband and a dog and two cats and goodness knows what other animals in her menagerie of a home in Utah if it would be okay for ALL THREE OF US (that's in all caps because it was really important...it was all three, not just me, but me, and my two Canadian Children who happen to wear black furry coats all the time no matter what the weather) to stay with her at her house while I worked at the Sundance Film Festival for 6 weeks. 

I don't know if perhaps NeverNakedBeth was doing her best to not make me cry or to placate what she thought was a VERY FRAGILE NAKEDJEN or if she thought that she could just agree to anything because there was no way that I would actually get a job with the Sundance Film Festival or actually contemplate leaving Santa Cruz or maybe she even thought that this whole "I'm Done" business with DearSweetDave was just going to magically work itself out and we wouldn't truly separate?  I'm not sure which or any of these things NeverNakedBeth was actually thinking, but what she did say was, "Of course, you can all come.  The dogs and you.  You can stay in our basement as long as you need to stay." 

Those were her exact words.

Given that those were her exact words, I tucked that promise in the back of my head and eventually on one of those days when I was actually breathing enough air that oxygen was truly getting to my brain I actually applied to the Sundance Film Festival for a variety of their job openings.  The only reason I did this was because, as I said, NeverNakedBeth had promised that all three of us could come and stay with her family in Utah as long as we needed to stay.

So now I've interviewed.  And everyone at Sundance is quite excited about Nakedjen coming to work at the festival.  I call my sister, NeverNakedBeth, and I say, "Great News!  I'm coming.  I'll be there in early December!"  And she says, "Oh, that's great.  What will you do with Buddha and Stella?" 

Buddha and Stella, my Canadian Children who wear the black furry coats all the time, are not invited to stay as long as they need to stay.  In fact, they're not invited at all.  Because NeverNakedBeth's husband is not fond of Canadian Children who wear black furry coats.  Especially when there are two of them.  And never allows them, ever, in the house. 

Well, my children, as NeverNakedBeth knows, as the entire world knows, go where I go, sleep where I sleep, and are never banished to the dog house in the backyard, especially in January in Utah.  Um, no.  Not a chance.

So this, as with lots of things in my life lately, throws a small wrench into my well laid out plans.  Har!  As if any plan I've had lately is well laid out.  Let's face it, I have not had enough oxygen to my brain cells for much more than the occasional few words strung together to form a semi-coherent sentence. 

I'll get to the point.  I need housing in Utah.  For me and my two Canadian Children who wear black furry coats.  Preferably, this housing is in Park City.  But it could also be in Salt Lake City.  It would be super if it was furnished, but it does not need to be.  It would be a dream come true if it was free, but let's face it, I'm just trying to put a roof over our heads, not asking for a miracle! 

I need it beginning in the middle of December, but would be happy to take it December 1 if that makes things easier.  And I'll need it until February 1.  But I can stay longer if that makes it easier, as well.  You see, I'm easy!! 

I've been doing the usual things one does in these situations.  Besides starting family quarrels, I've been scouring CraigsList.  I've been contacting property managers.  And NeverNakedBeth has been quite kind and has been willing to go and physically LOOK at potential properties for me so that I don't end up in a MOLDY situation. 

You never know who is reading this blog.  Who knows who and might know someone who knows someone else who happens to really like a Naked Hippie Girl who wears her heart on her sleeve, who will give you the shirt off her back and who will always tell you her truth and do whatever it takes to help you when she can.

That person who is stumbles here or is a long time reader or who happens to know someone who knows someone just might want to give a girl like me and her two Canadian Children wearing black furry coats a home in Park City for a few weeks. 

Like I said, you just never know.  And I won't know, if I don't ask.  So I'm asking. 

Please, let me know.

+++++

9x365  Your heart is as large as you are tall.  You're kind, you're gentle, you're witty, you're eyes never lie.  I always enjoy spending time with you.  I'm so glad that you got a dog.  Lola is good for your heart and your soul.

When I Remember To Breathe

I wish you all could see me right now. 

I'm squished on the couch at Grace's house (the one she hasn't replaced yet) between my two fabulous big black dogs, one on either side of me, comfy and cozy and I am breathing for what feels like, quite honestly, the first time in over a month.

I want to acknowledge the outpouring of love that I've been getting since I wrote yesterday that I was leaving Santa Cruz.  I want to also share that since I wrote yesterday that I was leaving Santa Cruz that I have spent a good many hours SOBBING.  Not about leaving Santa Cruz, but because so many other things in my life have decided to turn themselves completely on their head. 

That is not the reason I am at Grace's house, but I must again reiterate that there's something magical about Grace and her house.  It is a refuge.  Of course so is Gwendomama's house.  I have found amazing refuge there, as well.  I seem to be able to find refuge in most any house except my own these days.  My own house haunts me.  It is filled with so many reminders of what was, what was hoped for, what will never be, that I spend my days there forgetting to breathe.  And when you forget to breathe, you eventually really do start to die inside.

I received amazing acupuncture today, returned things to IKEA that will not be going into the moldy cottage that I will not be living in and had the pleasure of visiting with my friend Naomi.  All good things that should have given me reasons to smile. 

Still, smiles are hard these days.  Laughing is nearly impossible.  And mostly, I just spend a lot of time wiping my nose with my sleeves while I sit in a puddle on the floor.  There's lots of snot on my sleeves these days, but I figure I am doing my part to help the environment because I'm not using kleenex and thus no trees are dying and no bleach is polluting our waterways just because my husband decided he was done and I can't seem to get a grip.  I'm glad that this whole divorce mess is not contributing to the destruction of more trees.  My sleeves instead of trees.  To those of you who might suggest a handkerchief, I've tried that, but I always seem to misplace them just when I need them most.  Sleeves?  Well, unless I'm running around naked, they always seem to be handy.  And if I'm naked, well, snot on my arm just is snot not on my nose.

Now the truth of the matter is that what I really need is more nakedness, less sobbing, more laughter, less sorrow, more fun and to be able to stop throwing up.  The day I can get through 24 hours without throwing up will be a good day.  I'm hopeful that day is coming soon.

I know that I can't really leave Santa Cruz.  I am Santa Cruz.  And Santa Cruz is me. The essence of all that is Santa Cruz beats deep within my heart.  Especially when I remember to breathe.  But I can certainly go on a long and meandering road trip and see where that road might take me.  The roaring of the road can be a very healing thing.  Especially when you know you've got so many loving and caring souls who truly care just where you go.