Category: Uncategorized

A no-brainer favor

I would like to keep my personal life out of my work life.

I just want to do my job.

I don’t want to have to get into everything that’s been going on while I am at work.

My co-workers do not need people asking them about my private world

My personal life discussions happen here – let’s leave it that way.

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love. from a friend

NAMING LOVE TOO EARLY

is a beautiful but harrowing human difficulty. Most of our heartbreak comes from attempting to name who or what we love and the way we love, too early in the vulnerable journey of discovery.

We can never know in the beginning, in giving ourselves to a person, to a work, to a marriage or to a cause, exactly what kind of love we are involved with. When we demand a certain specific kind of reciprocation before the revelation has flowered completely we find ourselves disappointed and bereaved and in that grief may miss the particular form of love that is actually possible but that did not meet our initial and too specific expectations. Feeling bereft we take our identity as one who is disappointed in love, our almost proud disappointment preventing us from seeing the lack of reciprocation from the person or the situation as simply a difficult invitation into a deeper and as yet unrecognizable form of affection.

The act of loving itself, always becomes a path of humble apprenticeship, not only in following its difficult way and discovering its different forms of humility and beautiful abasement but strangely, through its fierce introduction to all its many astonishing and different forms, where we are asked continually and against our will, to give in so many different ways, without knowing exactly, or in what way, when or how, the mysterious gift will be returned.

We name mostly in order to control but what is worth loving does not want to be held within the bounds of too narrow a calling. In many ways love has already named us and called us before we can even begin to speak back to it, before we can utter the right words or understand what has happened or is continuing to happen to us: an invitation to the most difficult art of all, to love without naming at all.

leaning in and leaning on

“lean into this…it’s safe”

“lean on me, let me be the guy that shows up for you”

oh holy mother of god, have there ever been any scarier words spoken?

there is nothing I want more than to have the support of someone I love; a partner in the true sense of the word

but when it’s offered up, all I can think is that things are so much easier to tackle on my own because then I’m not counting on anyone else and I won’t be let down, disappointed

crushed

I have a history of thinking I’ve found that person who is willing to walk through the fire with me, a person who will be there with a handkerchief in hand and a big ole shoulder where I can lay my head

through thick and thin

in sickness and in health

my ability to discern between all-talk and the real deal has been super faulty

so when it is offered again, the truth, plain and simple, is that I don’t trust it

I don’t believe it to be real

I don’t believe in the other person

when my world imploded two years ago, I learned more than I ever wish I had to about fair-weather friends; about people who bail when the shit hits

I was devastated and disillusioned

a friend said, you don’t trust anyone…and I don’t fucking blame you

I also learned about what it means to have true blue dyed-in-the-wool friends

some friends, near and far, kept showing up – either on my doorstep or on the phone or even just on facebook – letting me know that yes, there are people who are the real deal

but that’s a whole different bag than a man with whom I am in a relationship

at this age, with this life experience, a woman like me gets to the point of saying, you never know if you can trust a man, but you know you can always count on your friends

so how does a woman like me ever trust a man (partner) again?

how does a woman like me lean into a relationship and allow that man to support her?

and, how does a woman like me protect herself without hurting the person (man) who is trying to be the good guy, the guy who shows up, the guy who actually wants to be the shoulder, and who isn’t the guy who bails when the going gets rough?

because right now, the going is really fucking rough

 

How we grieve

Five hours of tennis. Straight. One match.

Glued to the television. Hanging on every swing, every ping, every motion of the fuzzy yellow ball.

We are a family that loves tennis. We all played. I was horrible.

But that doesn’t mean that I don’t understand the thrill of hitting the sweet spot in the strings on the racket.

It doesn’t mean that I can’t appreciate a good match when I see one.

I have so many memories of my dad in his whites. I can still smell the mixed fragrances of sweat and tennis balls and an after-game Tom Collins.

Mom owned a tennis shop. Mom also played on a country club team. It was The B Team.

The B Team was my family. Mom used to say, “Why would I want to play on the A Team? They’re much too competitive.” The B Team was all about having fun.

The husbands and children of The B Team were as much a part of the team as the players themselves.

Mom and a couple of her teammates owned a tennis shop – The Court Jester. It was my first job and one of my dad’s first tax write-offs.

When we were in London for a business trip of my father’s, he got sick. While he was lying in bed in the hotel, Mom and I planned a day at the Tate. When we got on the underground and looked at the map to determine which stop was ours, Mom realized that Wimbledon was at the end of the line.

She debated for maybe a millisecond then announced that instead of a museum, we were going to watch tennis and we ended up watching Martina Navratilova on Centre Court.

One of the greatest moments in Strazza family history.

So it made perfect sense to the three of us here today that we would spend all day watching a ball fly back and forth across a net, periodically stating the obvious, “Dad would love this match.”

I don’t know how other families do this, but the Strazzas did tennis today and it was absolutely perfect.

It finally happened

the thing that we’ve been waiting for, anticipating, dreading…

my father has died

yesterday

totally expected, and yet, totally unexpected

meaning, we’ve known it was coming, but yesterday started out as a good day, an unextraordinary day, and then, in a moment, it became extraordinary

I am on my way

for what feels like the millionth time, I am in the dallas airport waiting to get on a plane

because this has happened so many times, I continue to imagine that everything there will be like it always is when I arrive

but it won’t be

and that won’t really hit me until I see his empty recliner

(the one from the medical supply store that launches a person onto their feet so they don’t have to get out of the chair of their own accord)

I have absolutely no idea how to do this

Spelling has gone to the dogs

This morning I have been online reading about corgis and their wretched tendency to bite the hand that feeds them – literally…even if that hand belongs to a seven year old boy who has done nothing but love and snuggle with that corgi.

Anyway, not the point.

The point here is:

I read multiple articles and what I learned was that

Hoomins need to be the alfa dog thruout the day.

I’m not fucking kidding.

We all know that writing about anything involving politics, world events, things that matter in the world…these are not my topics, but I’m on a tear right now.

I posted this on Facebook:

Okay, after reading through some other posts regarding the Kavanaugh situation, I feel as if I can't keep my mouth shut any longer...
In college, I was almost gang raped by men that I knew. I was locked in a room with...I don't know how many...and I remember someone pulling at my clothes. I remember laughter and the smell of beer. I remember my fear. I can guess at who was in the room because of who I was hanging out with earlier in the evening but I can't remember exactly who did what.
The only one I specifically remember is the one who picked me up off the couch, tried to redress me, and threw me over his shoulder pushing his way out of the room. He then walked me safely back to my dorm.
Later, much later, I wrote a humorous article about the frat houses on campus and lightly hinted at the situation. I was suddenly the bad guy and ostracized for it and each and every man in that fraternity denied that anything happened.
Does the fact that I don't remember a lot of it mean that it didn't happen? Does the fact that they all have denied being there mean that it didn't happen? Does the fact that I didn't report it mean that that horrible night never was? 
Have I gotten the details mixed up? Absolutely. Combine alcohol with trauma, fear, and years of trying to put it behind me, and chances are, a few details have gotten lost in the fray.
Do I feel the need to "go after" or "ruin" one of these men? No, I don't.
Nothing in me wants to relive that night, again and again, speaking of it out loud, to rooms full of skeptics, but...
If one of those men was in line to sit on the Supreme Court, a job that demands the utmost integrity, would I speak up?
Absolutely

So I wrote that on my “real” FB because I was pissed off at some conversations in my feed that were so hateful, and petty, and fucking inane, and ignorant, that I found I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.

Somehow I naively believed that since I had taken the time to read through others’ posts that others would take the time to read through mine and when they did, they would stop themselves from repeating the spiteful rhetoric that was spewing across the pages, across the country.

It didn’t work. I spent another hour this morning reading through more of the bullshit.

And these are people who I like.

But, what did come of my post gives me hope.

I received almost 200 comments and reactions – all of them positive. Okay, maybe not positive, but supportive.

And what has struck me the most is the number of women who have said, “me too.”

So many women. Such heartbreak. Such strength.

I received several private messages from women who have been sexually assaulted but for personal reasons do not choose to share their stories with the world.

So here’s what I am going to offer…

If you have a story to tell, and you don’t want to tell it yourself, for whatever reasons, yet it would help you in some way to share it, tell me.

I am safe. I am non-judgmental. I will not victim shame. I will not ask you why you were wearing what you wore. I will not ask you how much you had to drink. I will not ask you if you’re sure you are really remembering things accurately.

I will not ask you why you didn’t come forward before.

I will not say “Boys will be boys.”

I will not in any way, shape, or form, question the veracity of your story.

And, if you want it told to the world, I will share your story here – anonymously if you want – in a way that is empowering, liberating, and hopefully healing.

And if you just want to tell one person because you’ve never told anyone before, I would be honored to be that person.

And I will hold you with love and compassion and honor your bravery, not only in telling your story, but in surviving.

And just know that your secrets are safe with me.

You can contact me via email: songdogsally@gmail.com

Blessings to all