A Few Good Memes

Hello Internets -

It’s been a dynamic couple of months in the world of Jase. Pull up a chair. What are you having?

First, I’d like to introduce you to someone. But before I can do that, I have to go back a bit and let you in on some of my history. I left home at 17 for college. I crossed the Indiana state line with a few pieces of furniture, a class schedule, and a great deal of rage and sadness. Not to say I was a sad or angry person, per se, but I was just holding on to a lot of shit and had no way to get it out. My parents were divorced when I was five. When I was about 7 or 8, my dad married my stepmother. To say my stepmother and I had a lot of trouble getting along is a bit of an understatement. I went back and forth between parents between 5 and 18 and had a difficult time, emotionally, the years I lived with my dad and stepmother. I went searching for counseling in my late teens and early 20s to try and deal with this anger and had no luck. I went to one therapist who literally had me focusing on glowing orbs inside my abdomen and channeling dolphins and shit. Couldn’t find anyone that just wanted to talk. So the anger festered. After I got together with Anna in my mid-twenties, she suggested I find someone a bit more down to earth. She had worked with someone in the Marriage and Family Therapy discipline named Cricket (don’t you love her name?). I did some work with her and realized I was on the right track. She helped me get started working out my anger. Anna and I did a bunch of relationship work with Cricket over the years. She was/is extremely insightful and highly practical at the same time. I still see her regularly. She’s like my tribal elder. A guru of sorts. After seeing her some in my mid-twenties, she pointed me to Dick Schwartz in Chicago who does Internal Family Systems work.

The idea with IFS (which Dick developed, I believe) is that when we encounter emotional or spiritual trauma during our developmental years, we experience a sort of break, a mini multiple personality disorder, if you will. That person becomes stuck at that age and will sort of live within you and try to keep working out whatever they need to work out, often subconsciously, and often ineffectively. I thought the idea of IFS seemed a bit contrived at the time, but it’s turned out to be a pretty useful model to help me work out my own demons. You address these various internal people directly. I did some intense work with Dick and actually came out the other side having literally left behind all of the anger I felt toward my stepmother. I am eternally grateful for the work we did.

So let me introduce you to someone now. His name is Jasey Boy. Jasey Boy, Internets. Internets, Jasey Boy. Jasey boy is the 5 year old kid who has spent about 32 years trying just to understand what the hell happened to his family and why he can’t just get the love and attention he needs and deserves. I’ve been talking to Jasey Boy a lot lately. All the work I did with Dick and IFS mostly focused on another part who used to be really angry with stepmother. I haven’t talked to him in a long while. Like the scene in Little Miss Sunshine, he helped push the minibus up to a certain speed and then hopped in. Jasey Boy has demanded a fair amount of my attention since Anna died.

We’ve been doing a lot of talking over the last couple of months and I think it’s safe to say, he’s finally getting on the bus now. How did that happen? Well, there’s Jase. He’s the core person. The leader. He’s me. I’ve basically been able to show Jasey Boy that we’re going to be ok. Really ok. Better than ok, actually. We hit a point sometime last week where I think he finally let his guard down and decided to take my hand. There’s plenty of reason for Jasey Boy to feel safe and cared for. I’m raising 3 kids alone and doing a rather good job of it. (With no small amount of logistical help, for sure) None of them are maladjusted or terribly misbehaved or showing evidence that they’re cracking. On the contrary, they’re usually well-behaved and mostly happy (video below notwithstanding ). I get a constant stream of compliments about them. We have an enormous amount of love that flows in our household. It’s palpable. My friends see it. My family sees it. I’m paying the bills and making it to dentist appointments. I’m getting my body back to the place it needs to be which means I’ll probably be around for a while to raise my kids. I’ve earned a green belt in Tae Kwon Do in 9 months. All of these are external validations, of course. But there’s something deeper happening here.

When I lost Anna, it occurred to me that love is the only reason to exist. Everything else is only distraction and bullshit. Sure, you gotta pack your lunch in the morning and go to work each day, The Pretender. But that’s doing. I’m talking about being.

Jessica wrote about wholeness recently. I like the idea of wholeness. It’s easier for me to relate to than the idea of perfection. Perfection is unattainable. Wholeness seems to me to be everybody on the bus, trying to keep it pointing down the road without running over the curb or rear-ending anyone. Perhaps looking up at the bright blue sky sometimes. I’m getting there. Tae Kwon Do has “five tenets”: Courtesy, Integrity, Perserverance, Self-Control, and Indomitable Spirit. I always like reciting “indomitable spirit, sir!” in class. It just means “keep trying, you’ll get better”.

I’ve been going out over the last month or so with a woman I met on match.com. She’s a very sweet woman. Funny, intelligent, creative, attractive, literate, dedicated to raising her daughter, has a noble profession. It turns out there was a mismatch on what we were looking for, in terms of pace and direction. She made it pretty clear that she wasn’t sure she wanted to get into “looking for the one” relationship right now. I hadn’t wanted to hear that, given how great of a person she is, so it took a while to sink in. Once it did, I re-membered that I really am ok and that I’ll wait patiently for that relationship that takes things to the next level, spiritually, being more OK in my own skin than I ever have in the meantime. One of the many gifts I was given spending time with her was that the bar has been raised on the caliber of person I hope to share my life with at some point. I hadn’t been so sure about the dating pool at this age when I first set out.

I do have to admit I have another crush. I’ve only mentioned it to a few close people IRL. It’s highly improbable. And being only a crush, who knows where it will go. But she seems pretty in tune with herself, generous, kind, also striving toward wholeness. Even if nothing comes of it, it’s more indication that I’m finally in the place I need to be. In the words of Joseph Campbell, “If you want the whole thing, the gods will give it to you. But you must be ready for it”. I’ve tried to follow Campell’s famous words “When you follow your bliss… doors will open where you would not have thought there would be doors, and where there wouldn’t be a door for anyone else,” for many years. He hasn’t led me astray yet. I’ll die with my current wedding ring on my right hand. Maybe I’ll have one on my left hand too. Gravy.

This song is for Jasey Boy. Maybe we’ve found our One Safe Place, my uneasy friend. (You can ignore the video. Unless you are attractive, single, and Kiefer Sutherland stirs your loins and makes you want to email me.)

(It’s from Marc Cohn’s forthcoming CD. The track is called “One Safe Place”.)

Grace.