Baby

I have been called many things... some of them lovely and sweet, some others not at all lovely or sweet.

I have been Suzanne, Suzie, sister, daughter, Beth, Sue, Zimmy, Wife, Mommy, Divorce', swan, slave, Arnold, sister-heart, spice, bitch, liar, manipulator, destroyer, strong, weak, stupid, smart, Sweetie, Honey...

But just recently, and completely without any sort of guile or plan or intent that I can see, He has begun to call me "Baby."

I cannot even begin to explain or understand how that simple thing thrills me down to my toes.  I have never been anyone's baby.  It is the most breathtaking and amazing thing...

swan

I am Goose Girl

“Ego: The fallacy whereby a goose thinks he's a swan” ~~Anonymous

Jean-Francois Millet

There have been so many changes in our lives... so many ups and downs. It is sometimes hard to know what to think or how I feel, and it is surely impossible to predict what will come next -- or how any of us will react. We three have stumbled and staggered and flailed through the last 15 months or so, spewing anger and hurt and fear and confusion everywhere. We've been a mess of grieving and longing and bitterness. If there was a way to do this badly, we've been there, and if there was a mistake to make, we've done it up in grand style.

I've been every flavor of crazy that you can imagine through all of it. Within the mental health care community there is an understanding that a caring and supportive partner is a major benefit in helping someone heal from the impacts of PTSD. I've not even come close. I've wanted to be good for him and I've done some serious reading and study, but the sad truth is that, when he starts making noises that sound like accusation and blame, I go nuts, take all of his anger on, and begin thinking of ways to "get away and get out." Sometimes I have literally run away -- I once made it halfway across Indiana, heading west and sobbing, before he managed to talk me into turning around. At other times, I've shut down and withdrawn emotionally -- or worse, come roaring back with my own anger and accusations. I went through a period of months when I was fascinated with the idea of cutting -- and I think that the only thing that kept me from acting on those urges was the inescapable association with adolescent angst. From time to time, I've even contemplated suicide -- seriously planning how to accomplish that without leaving too much of a "mess."

Thanks in large part to the steady presence and hard work of my therapist, I think I am past a lot of that -- at least past the most irretrievably destructive bits. She is slowly helping me to see what has been, what is, and what may be -- and "love my way" into it all without insisting that it be the way I want it to be. She doesn't use the word "ego" with me, but it keeps cropping up in the reading I am doing. I am coming to see the places where that internal sense of the me who controls and decides and defends and wants -- my ego, has been at work in so much of my life. It is becoming clear that it is time to find some different way to encounter life and the world. That ego thing hasn't worked so well to this point.

Finding the quote that appears at the top of this post was, for me, like getting smacked in the head with a stick. Homer Simpson would probably say, "Doh!"

I've been calling myself swan for a really long time now. I know it wasn't a name that I chose for myself, but I did take it on, use it, like it -- and increasingly see myself in that way. Silly goose! I'm not a swan. I'm not the ugly duckling personna that I took on in childhood either, but I never was a swan. I've felt terribly hurt and abandoned each time he's insisted that he is not (and maybe never really was) dominant -- but my reaction was about losing the bits of my own ego identity that were attached to that. If he isn't willing to be "my dominant," then I, by definition, am not submissive; not slave. Which sends my poor, little, scared ego-self into a tizzy of worry: "What or who, exactly, am I?"

Maybe goose girl. I found that Jean-Francois Millet painting, and I could feel my mind settle down. She's sweet and innocent and simple and sure. She's round -- a woman in a woman's body; comfortable with herself. She's dropped all the outside trappings, and is completely who she is as she dips her toes into the stream. She has real things to tend to; real work to do; but it does not burden her. She is alone and perfectly comfortable with that. She isn't frantic to be with someone, although I sense she'd be joyful with the presence of a companion. She is serene and aware and alive -- surfing along on the tides of her life. I like her very much.

Sue

Name Silliness

You have but to know an object by its proper name for it to lose its dangerous magic.  

~Elias Canetti~

 My parents called me "Suzanne."  Well, truth be told, my mother called me that, and following her lead, all of my brothers used the name I'd been given at birth.  My father always called me "Suzy"  -- a moniker that I would tolerate from no one else.  


As a young adolescent, I tried to get everyone to use my middle name, and so for a short while, I became "Beth" outside of my family.  It wasn't something I ever successfully convinced my parents to accept, and the whim didn't last very long.


In college, I wanted desperately to be one of the guys.  The mining college where I studied as a young woman was a seriously male dominated world, and my jeans and denim shirts and combat boots belied the feminine handle I'd worn all my life.  There, I became "Zimmy,"  a shortened version of my surname.  


I spent years of with no name at all save the tags of "wife" and "mommy."


Arriving here nine years ago, to create a life of my own choosing, I flirted briefly with calling myself "Ahnold," but became instead, Master's "swan."  I've been swan for a really long time, and it is a name that I've loved and cherished and held close to me.  Of all the gifts He's given to me, that name holds a particular sort of mystery and magic.

Just lately, though, it seems that I've lost my "swan" label in favor of a more prosaic and less melodious appellation.  As Master has recovered from His shoulder replacement (and so been pretty restricted in the use of His right arm), He has taken to calling me without actually doing that directly.  It goes a little like this:

"Dammit!  I wish I had some more coffee."
"Dammit!  I wish I had my sandals."
"Dammit!  I can't find my glasses."
"Dammit!  I left the remote on the table."
"Dammit!  I dropped my pen."


And so it was that, about two weeks ago, I asked Him, teasingly, if He really thought that my name was "Dammit?"  I wondered out loud if I'd missed the one where He told me, "I love you, Dammit."  Wink!  


I don't know that I'm back to being swan, but I have heard way less "Dammit" in the last few days.


swan Dammit

What's in a Name?

I haven't always been "swan." Actually my swan moniker came about in response to a moment of lighthearted teasing that happened between Master, T, and I many years ago.

I don't remember the exact details anymore. It is probably sufficient that I'd been doing something around the house that required a degree of brute force and muscling. I'm a tall one, and capable of being fairly physically strong. I might have been moving furniture, or lifting something up onto a shelf, or repairing something around the house... Whatever it was, Master, upon hearing about my exploits, exclaimed, "That's my big, strong, German girl!"

Given that descriptor, I quipped that maybe I'd just change my name to "Ahhhnold."

T and I giggled at the joke, and at Master's obvious chagrin at the prospect. He thought for just a moment and then restated the situation:

"You are nothing like Arnold Schwarzenneger. You are my tall, beautiful swan." And so it is that I've remained "swan" ever since.

I was remembering my Ahhhnold incarnation yesterday as I worked to prepare the house for having the carpets cleaned today.

My condo has some issues related to a fire that occured in the building just a few weeks after we moved in here years ago. The condo that belongs to Master and T was close enough to the unit where the fire occured that they sustained significant smoke damage. Insurance paid to have their place completely cleaned -- ducts, carpets, upholstery, clothing -- the whole business. On the other hand, the adjustors insisted that there was no need for any of that in my place (one unit further from the fire, although in the same building). Over the years, it has become clear that that assessment was simply wrong. There is black soot at the edge of all my carpeting and a nasty, sooty black discharge from every heat vent. Finally, after battling the problem for over five years, we decided that there was no option but to have the ducts and carpets cleaned professionally. Today is the day. Which means that yesterday was spent moving EVERYTHING out of here to the garage so that the carpet cleaners can have a clear shot at the project. EVERYTHING! Chairs, benches, tables, exercise gear, electronics, the entertainment center -- it is all stacked in the garage, filling the space entirely. There is practically nothing left inside the house.

Clearly, the Ahhhnold side of me is still there, waiting to be called forth when the need arises. That isn't a bad thing after all.

swan