my so called life

i'm not sure what my addiction is to painful love. the awkward stuff. i guess my addiction is the nation's addiction. i can't be the only one keeping buffy and angel, willow and oz, angela and brian crackow, or the couple whose names i can't recall – from life goes on, on the air. (although technically i guess no one kept my so called life on the air)

something about the intensity of it i guess. it feels so real. even in its heart wrenching ending…or maybe because of the heart wrenching endings. i'd think i'd fall instead for the campy love stories…the ones that ride into the sunset…my sister and her husband, my folks…hell my grandparents. but i guess since i don't know that love it seems a little too surreal. less realistic than a witch and a werewolf – or a red haired 15 year old version of my self and the geek next door (or was i the geek next door?).

of course even in the painful rending of hearts on television, they manage to love again. usually not with quite the same fervor – but some facsimile or evolution…maybe just the next iteration. i am left wondering if there is a cap though…some magical number or threshold for ache that hearts reach…some finite breaking point, beyond which they can endure no more.

is it possible for heartbreak to break the capacity for love…or is it just fear that stands in the way?

the moon, almost full, hung gauzy in the twilight. the sun had crossed the horizon but darkness hadn’t regained her hold over day, though the time was close. i stopped for a moment, the car settling into itself with the usual groans and clinks, and looked up. in high school i would have called mark, in college it was niambi. they shared my appreciation for the seeming minutia of life…the texture of leaves clinging to wispy branches, the blueness of birds flitting against a cloudless sky, a sunset burning crimson and orange on the horizon.

mostly i get strange looks now. some friends slow their gait, recognizing it is futuile to hurry me along. others wonder what i’m staring at, never seeming to notice the delicate detail of bay area tile work or stained glass sodering.

i miss the knowing smile of someone who sees the beauty, not the crazy, in watching stars and waves with interest and awe. i still see the beauty scattered through seemingly mundane days but i sure miss the company of others that share my vision.

even the people who know me best…who I know best…only know as much as Is hare, I only know of them what I filter through myself.

the last few years have been a test of relationships on every level. i spent my 20s learning who i am and i've spent my 30s reconciling that against what people know of me, want from me. i've had friends come and go. sometimes going only to return some years laters, sometimes not sure they want to return. and it is a helpless kind of feeling. like standing trial, waiting for a verdict and knowing that the verdict will change your fate.

this weekend was an exercise in friendship. friends flew me to boston to hang out simply because we hadn't seen each other in a while…and we just hung out. talked and watched movies and youtube. and it reaffirmed what i already knew of them…beautiful people i'm glad to know.

factor in a visit from one of my oldest friends i hadn't seen in 10 years, another friend i hadn't seen in one, and a friend who texted me to let me know he couldnt be friends with me any longer because he once had, or has, feelings for me…and the friendshp wheel was spinning out of control.

and while usually this would knock me off balance, this weekend i recognize my own limitations. i can offer love…but i cannot make someone recieve it. i offer my authentic self…but i cannot make someone like me…i offer space, but i cannot make someone retrace steps to intimacy.

what i can do is be thankful for warm hugs and earnest words from the people who are able to give it…and keep a watchful eye for those who can't just yet…not now…but maybe later.

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how much of who we were…what we've done…defines who we are now?

colin powell's endorsement of obama has sent ripples through both the republican and democratic wings. one screaming traitor for what he did today, the later for what he did years ago. and i am left wondering is it possible to truly overcome past mistakes?

looking at our judicial system the answer is clear…no, you can't. it is why we revoke a felon's right to vote, why job applications ask about prior convictions. ours is a system of punishment, vengeance. if we were about rehabilitation or correction than those things would be unnecessary. instead they are labels attached to their owners for a lifetime.

and even where the law is in tact, a lapse in judgment, a different perspective, any indiscretion is equally attached to you. i do it…i assume most people do. it is the common sense wisdom we hold ourselves smart enough to follow…once a cheater always a cheater…fool me twice shame on me…

the overwhelming sentiment is that people don't change. what you were is what you are. and on some level it is true. there are aspects of me that remain unchanged. there are people who knew the interiors of me years ago, lifetimes, who even now, when they occasionally reemerge, are able to speak to me in the most intimate ways because parts of me are unchanged.

but not all of me. there are aspects of me that are altered. Some for the better but not all…there are things i have done that i regret or grieve. relationships that ended in ways i wish they hadn't. and i would hate to be held to those.

a few weeks ago i read something that took the evolution debate to a place i had never thought about. instead of it being about evolution in the past…people from apes, from some cosmic slime it focused on evolution in the present. birds with no predators no longer flying…the slow adaptation of living things to their surroundings.

the article talked about disbelief in evolution as a representation of stagnation. the idea that the world and all of its occupants are unchanged, unchanging, unchangeable.

that notion scares me.

when i was in the fifth grade i made a girl in my class cry. i still feel bad about that. i wish i could take it back. i carry it with me and try to be mindful of hurtful things i can say or do so as not to make a habit of repeating it.

i am made up of hundreds of such incidents…some miniscule some large…as many celebratory as condemning. Neither represents fully who i am. none define me entirely. for the bad, i hope that my memory of them, my remorse, my attempts to rectify – to learn, my future successes define me more.

powell mislead the nation – then. he is lending his name to try to make it better – now. traitor or hero, sinner or saint…we're all in a state of flux.

The complexities of “isms” leave room for damage in a multitude of ways. It can be a landmine for well meaning people and a nuclear bomb for the completely unthinking. Consider palin and obama in this election. Both wear their isms with little ability to hide…Palin her womanhood, obama his blackness.

With palin, discussions turn immediately to sexism. And in a flash anything and EVERYTHING is awash in that cry. Call it the gender card. Even to ask about her qualifications is considered taboo. But in this gymnasts nightmare of contortions the adhering to the new rules of engagement exposes the sexism people are presumably trying to avoid. In an attempt to mitigate the negative assumptions tied to gender, her handlers have silenced those who might utter something unfair – be it media or joanne public. The reality remains, no one would assemble such a protection force for a male candidate. mccain fields inquires and insults alike regarding his age and obama continues to face questions about his “otherness” without the buffer instituted for palin’s defense.

What message does that send? As a woman she can’t handle the pressure – is she too frail? It is both shield and weapon. At the debate it was evident that biden was restraining his response – not, by my thinking, because he didn’t think she deserved his wrath or even because he thought her incapable of handling it – because the outcry has been “unfair”, undue attention to our woman selection. And as such she is both buffered but she equally reaffirms sexist assertions.

For obama the ism conundrum has shifted slightly over the months. Questions of how black is too black and what isn’t black enough have lowered their volume and been replaced by cries for heat and more relaxed speech patterns.

For his part, he is caught in an impossible situation. At the beginning of his candidacy so much attention was paid to how “different” he seemed to white America from the pervading representation of black men. Biden himself asserted, “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy”. I have no doubt that obama in a suit, watching what he eats, and paced and deliberate speech patterns would be that even if he weren’t running for president – even so I recognize that if he wasn’t that he couldn’t be running for president. Fast-forward the primary season and all of a sudden people have forgotten that that was what made him palatable to them in the first place.

He doesn’t rhyme when he speaks. His cadence, though distinct, doesn’t sound like it was born in the pulpit of a southern baptist church. And he wasn’t angry. But with mccain and palin increasingly insulting and misleading in their attacks I have heard calls for him to get mad. And even as people still think that calling a harvard educated, president of the law review, senator, articulate is a compliment, there are those who now lament his grasp of the queen’s english – his suit and tie – in fact, all the things that originally brought him praise.

My sister and I have discussed at length how impossible it is for obama to be or do anything except what he has been and is doing. Hillary’s female successor in the journey to the white house (polar opposite in every way except ovaries) has closed the loop on ideas of gender- hillary wasn’t feminine enough and palin’s “off limits” reality has spurred comments ranging from too girly to too distracted by motherhood (ends of the sexism spectrum hillary never reached).

Of course the difference remains, obama has been grilled on policies and when his grand speeches were brought to question he has answered with an ability to speak to specifics and to think through answers he may not have yet. For palin, what we’ve seen has been less than inspiring. Gender issues pushed out of the spotlight- what she has shown is a gross underestimation for the complexities of the world she seeks to govern.

The thing about isms is that despite the roadblocks they add to already arduous roads to success, once the age, color, or gender is peeled back, if what remains is lacking it makes it tough to claim unfair treatment…even if it was unfair.