I’m doing my own thing!
The best suggestion ever. Thanks, Sam!
This posting about restraining orders was spotted at my first tourism-related, non-computer-centric job at a winery just this past year, 2018. Naturally, the notice reminded me of when I actually had to get one against Reid once I moved out of Coffey Park and Wells Fargo bank frustratingly sent a letter of confirmation of my new address at Coddingtown Mall Apartments to my previous address at Reid’s house.
By the way, that first tourism job has been immensely enjoyable—getting to make already happy people happier by giving tours of the winery and educating them about winemaking and the history of the industry in California, starting with Prohibition and how many jobs have been created since its repeal. Lots of interesting, friendly, good for my overall health and wellbeing in-person conversation is being enjoyed responsibly by me.
These days, that is exactly what I am about…enjoying responsibly. I always have been. I have never been arrested or hospitalized overnight for any reason and my driving record is clean, so I’m boldly going in the direction of not letting anyone define me.
Pouring wine on the other side of the counter, describing its aromas and flavors, and selling it is not the same as when you are the guest, the customer, the visitor, the consumer. It’s the best I have ever performed as a salesperson on what amounts to my fourth attempt at a sales career.
I am happily living in the present while Reid has been talking to me in spirit since before the fire and basically won’t be quiet. Therefore, I have to write about him due to my unwavering sense that he wants to be written about, warts and all (he didn’t actually have any warts, though, I don’t think.) My present-day partner, Tomas, agrees that he is not competing with a dead man in any way. This is simply where my inspiration has partly been leading me, into a memoir of sorts.
I’ve long since let go of the idea that I’m uninspired. It’s just been a matter of exploring a lot of ideas for moving forward since my brother died and then narrowing it down, taking the time I need to determine for myself what is best for me. I did this once before, since the breakup with Reid, when I found myself not completely satisfied with where I was and needing to do something about it. Much has changed for me in the past 15-20 years.
Reid was emotionally abusive and I wasn’t going to have the same conversations over and over.
Interestingly, it was Reid’s mother who gave me a book of what was pretty sophisticated, groundbreaking work in the field of psychotherapy at the time, giving terminology to what we both knew I was being subjected to: Psychological violence. Examples included standing someone up for an agreed upon meeting with no explanation, always cancelling plans at the last minute, along with much more serious offenses. I wish I remembered the title.
Reid’s family had an impressive grasp of the concept that he was his own person and not an extension of any of them that was OK to provoke for their entertainment or project their issues onto. Unless it was an actual emergency warranting legitimate worry as opposed to behaving fearfully or suspiciously to fulfill a need to draw attention to ourselves, his mother and I did our best to refrain from talking about him so as not to infantilize him or stab him in the back.
However, those times he disappeared in an agitated state and his mother and I were rightly concerned rather than trying to prove to each other what a great parent and friend we were in which case we would have effectively made it all about us and our egos while ostensibly caring about though not appropriately acting on what he might have truly needed from us.
In the meantime, he continually asked annoying questions about other men, especially other Canadians.
What could I say that would shut him up?
There were false accusations of cheating. I’d mention just about any other guy and it was, “Who’s that, your other boyfriend?”
You mean that Gulf War veteran turned Gossip Girl who is stuck in middle school and has no respect for privacy?
No.
Then, deftly changing the subject in an effort to diffuse the tension created between us:
“The kidnapper murderer is going to trial.”
“Good, I’m glad they caught that sadistic scumbag.”
Why don’t you…[insert here all the things he thought I should do exactly how he thought I should do them, when it made no difference]
“Why don’t you shut up?” A therapist improvised for how she would respond as I regaled her with our story to that point.
I had given our relationship three years before winding up in the courtroom of Judge Cerena Wong, who had about 25 cases before me.
What a drag this process was. Once he knew where I had moved and kept showing up both there and where I was working, and pulling the receptionists into the drama with embarrassingly persistent phone calls, I had no choice but to go through it.
“Can we try again to work this out?”
“No, you’re a jerk.”
“I want to make this work. I’ll do anything.”
“Well, you should have thought of that three years ago. I don’t want anything. Not from you. Not anymore.”
Here it was, October 1998. If my friends and former acquaintances could see me now, I thought, as the Honorable Cerena Wong filled us in on the finer points of having a restraining order in place.
“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Reid said in a loud whisper in the chair next to me.
I did my best to ignore him but alas, could not hide behind my hair as I had just gotten an experimental short, pixie cut.
With the way some of these couples’ situations were playing out, I wondered if Judge Wong would even be able to get to us by the end of the day. She was operating as efficiently as possible, though, and would ultimately just verify the length of time (1-3 years) I was requesting and that was it. I blurted out one year and it was a done deal.
But not before this cannot-unsee ridiculousness:
Random Dude: “She committed adultery!”
Judge Wong: “I’m sure that’s a lot of fun to say in a courtroom full of people, but I don’t care about that.”
Sweet poetic justice!
As it turns out, Judge Wong is reportedly a Christian Republican. Perhaps in her church she might have cared about “that.” But she wasn’t in her church. She was on the bench, in her robe, gavel in hand.
He appeared to take for granted that he could get everything he wanted by humiliating a woman publicly. But for once—at least what seemed at the time, for just once—a woman didn’t hold a position of power just to unilaterally take a man’s side in sex-shaming and condescendingly toe the line of the patriarchal double standard.
People project a lot onto others in large part, I believe, due to inherited trauma passed down through generations causing a lot of intergenerational tension that Reid’s mother didn’t seem to internalize the way a lot of us do…about how we perform our genders and how race and cultural background intersects with this. Reid could speak in terms of the bigger picture of inherited trauma without his mother taking it personally and she advised me to try not to take what Reid said and did (or didn’t do) personally either.
Inside I was wildly busting up with laughter upon Judge Wong’s retort. I wanted to jump up and let it out loudly with my midsection exploding and my arms flailing up like errant solid rocket boosters. But I didn’t want Judge Wong to kick me out of the courtroom before I got my turn and have to start the restraining order filing process all over again. Who knew what could happen in the time that would take?
Follow the emotional maturity, avoid the abuse and should Reid try to enlist help changing my mind, politely but firmly suggest those “little helpers” not be judgmental about things that are none of their business.
Next up…”I don’t hate you because you’re not on the Sharks team…or any. You hate yourself because you’re not in the NHL.” There I was, perfectly fine with not being a hockey wife. But failing to achieve and maintain uninterrupted professional athletic status would never be acceptable to Reid. It was totally and completely unacceptable. And there was no ramming acceptance down his throat, either. Not by me, not by his friends and family, not by anyone. I accepted (read: held space for, did not emotionally colonize—Google it!) his lack of acceptance until it decidedly made him unbearable to be around.
Affirmation: I work with whomever I choose who also truly and sincerely wants to work with me without hidden agenda or ulterior motive. The relationship is mutually respectful, filled with trust and good faith on both sides and beneficial to both and/or all involved. Through my employer’s/clients’/business partner’s emotional intelligence, any attempts by anyone to sabotage our professional and/or personal relationship will be seen as such and will be a reflection of their character and not mine. I would never run for school board as facetiously mentioned in an earlier blog entry or any public office—my lack of qualifications for a political post notwithstanding— given the pettiness that surfaces with old irrelevant stuff thrown in one’s face when we’ve long since moved on to better things and made every effort to learn and grow and to help others do the same. Using what you know about someone to hurt them doesn’t sound like a true friend, does it? With friends like that, who needs enemies?
I have a strong, sound and solid-as-a-rock work ethic and believe in working for whatever I want and need like a normal everyday person and giving back to my community, contributing to the collective highest good of humanity.
Colin Kaepernick made his “statement” on behalf of many, many other people who would have liked to have done the same but perhaps felt they couldn’t afford to on a mere micro-fraction of the athlete’s salary if they were working with someone without the emotional maturity to handle their expression of what amounts to fear for their lives and those who resemble them.
People just want to feel safe; especially from those whose job it is to keep EVERYONE safe. I don’t want to get shot; do you want to get shot? The police and fire departments have come through for me personally in many, many ways throughout my life for which I continually and profusely thank them but we all occasionally err on the job and when sister Santa Rosans want to talk to me about a life that mattered to them, I am going to listen and post flyers if that is what I’ve been asked to do (I have been and did.)
When well-paid actresses in the #metoo movement speak up about the longstanding imbalance and abuse of male power in that industry, it’s the same thing…they are standing up both for themselves and for others who might want to but “can’t afford” to for fear of being blackballed from their much less lucrative fields and left in ruin.
It’s celebritarian activism, more or less.
In the months leading up to the Tubbs Fire, let me be honest. I feel blessed and grateful for Tom’s and my current arrangement. However, I didn’t just want this property, Reid’s old house, (and yard!), I was coveting it. To open that kitchen sliding glass door, walk out on that lawn with my bare feet and pick the 6-8 apples that I learned from living there once that it takes to bake an apple pie in an 8″ or 9″ pie plate or tin.
Reid once gave Ellen across the street a big basket of apples and she returned a day or so later with half a pie.
“I had to make sure it didn’t taste like sh!t,” she said.
In one of my imagined alternative realities, I could have had Reid’s and my children pick those apples. He might jokingly but not funnily tell them to “get the switch” after watching a godawful VH1 movie. When our kids grew bigger we would consider putting this property on the market and upsizing to a two-story home either in this neighborhood or Fountaingrove, which also would have burned down, more than likely, in October 2017 and would not necessarily have made us any happier. In my demographic, I have learned that, at least in North America, there is a threshold when it comes to having one’s monetary and material needs met but with unbridled capitalism (we need a sweetspot balance of capitalism and socialism, really) some might “have everything” and yet…(see below.)
Realistically, I would not have gone out there barefoot because of Hobo and Dakota, the two dogs, and their landmines.
The opinions expressed on my personal site do not represent a company since a business outfit is not a person, just like corporations are not people (in my opinion.)
I am finding positive and productive working relationships with emotionally mature people, and perhaps we can enjoy both working and having some leisurely fun together too. I advocate for adventurous safety at home and adventurous safety abroad.
Global travel, anyone?
Every human on the planet deserves to feel free to go where they want to within reason without fear of being shot. Why can’t police join forces with psychiatric technicians for those 5150 calls?