In reading some stuff a few days ago, I realized that flutter had held a coming out party of sorts for those of us who have a love-hate relationship with Facebook.  I rolled with laughter, crossed my legs and prayed that I wouldn’t pee in my pants as I read her post. Then, I started to thank the mighty Lord that she is my friend because it would be a nightmare of epic proportion if she decided I was the enemy.  Her day of comeuppance reminded me of how passive aggressive and cowardly I can be.

For instance, there are a million and one instances when I see someone’s status and want to make an unbearably snarky follow-up just because.

Like this one:

so and so “doesn’t look like anyone famous…. if you think I do, you should let me know so I will be prepared for this doppelganger thing if it comes around again!”

Umm…actually, nobody gives a rat’s ass if you look like someone famous, and given that most days you use a baby picture for your profile photo, i’d say it’s safe to say that you don’t even look like anyone’s famous baby.

or this one:

bad grammarian “This years Grammy’s was off the chain.”

Which chain? Whose chain? Oh, and BTW, you’re almost 60 years old. Stop saying things like that. It doesn’t really matter how much of a midlife crisis you’re experiencing. You’re a middle aged white guy.

A lot of times I’d just like to write something in my status bar akin to, “Nobody cares what spirit guide animal you are, what your tarot cards reveal, if you rescued a fake baby seal, what level you are in farmville or how many times you’ve played fake poker. There’s actually an option so that smack doesn’t get published to your wall and/or everyone’s general feed.  So, here’s the deal: I won’t tell you every time I’ve spotted a mouse in Fairyland if you don’t ask me to adopt a lonely star-nosed mole.”

Other times I’d like to write something more like, “If you have unsuccessfully tried to friend me on facebook, I’ve denied you for one or more of these reasons: a) I don’t know you. b) I don’t like you c) We never hung out in high school and I’m not going to accept your friendship request some 15+ years later just so you can indulge your voyeuristic whims and view all of my photos, try to figure out my marital status, whether the fact that you heard I might be pregnant is true AND EXACTLY WHAT I’ve been doing for all these years.  d) You’re a fraternity brother of my ex-husband, and I think it’s pretty kooky that you’d want to be friends, and to that particular one of you: hey! i think it’s great that you’ve lost some weight, and still? No. e) You were a total bitch to me when we were growing up. Do I just seem like the kind of person who wants to come back for a third helping of bullying? Also, your eyebrows, or lack thereof, make you look like Auntie Mame on meth. f) you’re my mom.”

And, when I get these feelings, I generally just slink away from facebook and over to Twitter where I feel like the 140 character limit is plenty of room to vent.  Of course, if it’s not, I have the luxury of continuously pelting out tweets about it until 12 people unfollow me or I get tired–whichever comes first. It’s cool either way.  But, that’s when I get frustrated with Twitter. There’ll be days when you can’t even get an “Amen!” to your rant, and then there are days when the whole posse is with you. AND that’s when you get new follower requests if, like me, you’ve protected your tweets so that the same psychos outlined in the above paragraph cannot read your entire anecdotal 140 character daily burp.  You have to be really careful who you decide to let follow you because while some people, innocuously enough,  just want to show you naked photos, some people are the infiltrating types who are RILLY RILLY interested in hanging on every little word.  It would be pretty cool if Twitter would show you your “in common” friends, if any, like facebook does.  Or, maybe if the person who wants to follow would give you a head’s up, it wouldn’t quite be like getting snuck up on.

It’s as my sister says: The internet is not your friend.

Well, hell. I know the internet has not really been my friend, but the internet is a beguiling little whore.  Where else can you search people, and have access to lots of photos because oh, heck, there are PEOPLE out there who are clever enough to make their facebook or myspace profiles private, but they don’t make their photos private?  AND then you see someone’s ex, and based on what she’s wearing in a certain photo can confirm that she actually  was the one hopped up on some magical concoction of what certainly must be termed “recreational pharmaceuticals,” and clearly engaging in attention seeking behavior when you were lucky enough (read: pregnant) to be the designated driver on one fateful night in early December.

And, even more diabolically, there’s the “hey I will friend so and so on facebook because I know they won’t be friends with you, but at least you can see what they’re doing” person.  (That’s a favorite trick of the above styled hopped up person.)  That really creates a lot of fun for me because then I can go back and write all sorts of ridiculous things on that person’s wall which “Lil Hopper” can read and then promptly go insane.  It really only backfires on me if she calls or emails someone I love to sell her unique brand of redneck crazy.

AND that’s when my husband wants to know exactly how I know what I know, and I’m all, “because I read it here, here, and HERE!” And he’s all, “this is precisely why I don’t want anything to do with this crazy crap.”  And I’m all, “Yeah, but you know you totally want to know. I’ve seen your face equally aghast and delighted by this sort of knowledge. Let me at least keep this limited profile so that I may play Fairyland like the addict I am and idly stroll through the knowledge vaults of the poisonous facebook.”  (Okay, I didn’t really say that.  It was more like he said, “What are you doing? FaceHooking?” and I was like, “uh…yeah…” as I quickly navigated back to something he’d like better such as the Drudge Report or the Cabela’s website…

“WOW! Save $20 on a Primos Killer B Turkey Decoy? HELL, YES.”

I woke up at 5:11 am, and tossed and turned for about 30 minutes. As is my habit, I rolled over, looked at my sleeping husband and began to run my fingers up and down the length of his arm.  He’s a very sound sleeper, and that’s probably a good thing since over the course of the almost two years we’ve been together I’ve cultivated this funny habit of rubbing his back or arm or running my fingers through his hair to put myself to sleep.  Anyway, I couldn’t sleep–too many things going through my mind, a baby kicking me from the inside out, a sick little girl up on and off all night and into the morning.

I fed the kids, took D to school, came back and helped the man get ready for his guys’ trip out of town.  When he crept back upstairs to shower, I sat down and wrote the following because it needed to be said:

Dear M-

I hope you have a really great time this weekend.  Thank you for so many things–for taking care of me and our children…for supporting me…believing in me…expecting better of me and kicking me in the rear when needed.  Thank you for calling me every day and asking what you can do to help me after you’ve worked a twelve hour day with a 45 minute commute.  Thank you for worrying about me while carrying your child–forcing me to eat when I swear I have no appetite, running to the store at odd hours for requests that have ranged from the scoop-like Fritos to Oreos with the chocolate filling to a pint of raspberries to a half gallon of grapefruit juice.  Thank you for working so hard over your only vacation time of the year to remodel our kitchen, redesign the family room and spending a veritable fortune that shouldn’t have been spent showing the kids what a cool Christmas your Santa can provide.  Thank you for making us a team, working together to create a plan for our family’s financial success and security.  I can’t tell you what it means to have someone say, “You first: you go back to school and build a career before I think about making any kind of switch.”  Thank you for looking at the odds stacked against us and the failings of others and deciding that we’ll manage it even if we’re not sure how right now.  Mostly, thank you for looking at me on the day when I was as white as a sheet and wondering how to tell you that I was expecting your child, and saying, “Do you want to try to make this work?”  Thank you for taking something that was not our “dream” or plan and making it something worth rallying around.  Thank you for making this old dream of mine, however faded, of being a Suburban driving wife and mom of a big family come true.  I love you, precious.

xoxo,o.

Anyway, I slipped that in an envelope, walked upstairs, and zipped it up in his jacket pocket.  I hope he has a wonderful time in the mountains with good friends,  all the best food and wine, and (miracle of miracles!)  the soft, falling snow.  In the mean time, I’ll be waiting for him to come home so I can have my security blanket to “ninny” as I fade off to sleep.

Today I find myself unbelievably challenged by the overall sensation that virtually everything is driving me crazy.  Mainly,  I’m being driven crazy by people telling me how sorry they are that my business is closed. What I think they mean is that they are sorry for me that it didn’t work out, I don’t have a job, purpose or place in this world. Of course, that may not be what they mean at all.  My response is generally that (shock and surprise) I’m pretty tired of teaching yoga. It’s sapped me of my own practice, worn me out and left me feeling pretty aggro toward yoga.

I remember a few years ago there was a woman in the same town where I live who tried to start a new branch of her restaurant in slightly more upscale form. It was a good effort, but in the end it failed. She wrote an op/ed piece in our local paper, and got some pretty negative feedback.  She dared to call people out for how disingenuous they are.  They decry the lack of amenities, progressive practices, shops, restaurants and bars, but they don’t really support them when they’re here.  Sure, everyone experiences a new business bounce, but as soon as you’ve been in business for a year, the lustre is gone.  I guess what I’m saying is that in laying down some old-fashioned truth this woman got what everyone in denial about their essential selves gives: anger. Nobody wants to hear about their least flattering characteristics.  No person wants to be accused of being shallow.

As my business was closing, there were some weeks when I felt just as irritable as this restaurant owner. You see, for a solid two years I spent my time, money and energy in hosting a full weekly schedule of yoga classes. I spent a fortune on child care, rent, and all expenses associated with running a business.  There would be two month runs when the classes would be full, and then there would be nobody in class. I never could quite work out a rhyme or reason to it. People would sign up for sessions of classes, and then never come.  In all honesty, that really wore me down.  To park the time and spend the money on a babysitter for nobody to arrive was financially and emotionally burdensome.  In all the time, it often felt as if people were collectively pulling some massive prank on me: Hey, look!! A whole ton of us are interested in your classes!! Save me a spot!! Emails galore!! And then?? Nothing.

Finally, I decided to stop offering classes altogether.  In a brilliant bit of irony, more emails poured in asking to purchase gift certificates, take classes, and with overflowing interested in yoga.  There were countless times in which I wanted to shoot back venomous emails back deriding them for bullying me about when and where and why on earth could they NOT take yoga when they never supported the business when it was needed so desperately.  I openly mocked the clients who bawled and whined about having no more classes when the truth is that they never attended enough to have what anyone would even call a practice.

You simply can’t expect a local business to stay open when you don’t support it.  It’s as basic a principle as that.  And that’s where people get called “disingenuous” by people like me and others who’ve watched their businesses wither on the vine in a small town that wants to be progressive and hip, but just can’t quite hang.  We cannot collectively be frustrated and angry about how “stuck in the past” or “lame” this place is when we don’t make time or choose to spend our money locally.  It’s almost as if we just want to know that cool places exist here. But, knowing is not enough–we have to get out and support the arts, small businesses and boutiques or they will be forced to leave.  When they go, all that’s left is a row of fast food restaurants, big box stores, gas stations and movie theaters.

Empty hotels, a vacant mall, and a downtown space that’s still got many ghost-town-esque spots is what we’re left with.  The shame is that there are so many awesomely talented people here–people who want to make a difference, but I’m afraid they’re swimming upstream in a mean way.  So, the answer for me is this: Please don’t be sorry I’m out of business.  I’m ready to move on, have this baby, nurture myself and my family for a bit, head back to school, and embark on the next great adventure.  I’m ready to spread out my yoga mat for me and nobody else.  I’m ready to be able to spend my creative brain enjoying some of the exciting local pursuits currently available for as long as they last.  I’ll go downtown to the open air market, eat at my friend’s bistro, do yoga at my friend’s new studio–it’s enjoyable to see someone else be resident yoga mama!, and continue to spend Sundays in the park listening to music.

For the rest of the things that are bothering me, I’m going to look at what the “inner me” thinks for a while. I’m not sure what everyone else’s “inner me“ thinks, but mine is very skinny and bossy and foul mouthed as she speaks in her British accent. She’s pretty good at giving the “outer me” the business when I flail.  So, today, as I flail and whine and give in to the crazy makings of my family or why I’m suddenly furious that anything by Snow Patrol is EVEN DARING TO BE IN MY iTUNES, I’m going to listen to my “inner me” who is facing me, shaking me and screaming, “SWEETIE DARLING LET ME IN!” I mean, after all, my inner me has to be one hell of a boss lady to work with me.

Now, pardon me because I’m going to go hang out with the only individuals who haven’t irritated the hell out of me today: 9 remaining krispy kreme doughnuts.

Almost five years ago, I was in yoga teacher training when my mentor asked us all an important question.  He said, “What do you have? What are you holding onto? What would you like to let go of?”  He proceeded to lead our group, divided into twos in an exercise that was unnamed, but reminds me very much of this. It was a very private and emotional afternoon.  I held my partner, and she held me in a seated yoga pose for almost 10 minutes.  Tears flooded my face and my words came out as a squeak or a whisper–I could hardly say what I was saying, if you know what I mean.

Yoga teacher training is an extremely emotional journey.  A lot of us go not knowing what we’re doing or what we’ll find.  I drove home that night to see my young children before turning around the next morning at 5:30 and heading north again.  The road from my home to my destination temporarily runs east-west, and as I drove west so very early in the morning, I found a particular irony in running away from the dawn at eighty miles an hour.  I reviewed the events of the prior day, and as if to test myself, I tried to conjure up a vision of the thing that had haunted me for 11 years.  But, as close as I tried to pull that terrifying person-memory-thing, it wouldn’t come back.  It was encapsulated in a bubble, unable to hurt me.

I told my mentor what had happened in our “circle time”–a private space for participants in training to talk.  He had a larger than life grin on his face and said to me, “You totally kicked its ass!”  I don’t know if it felt like I gave a royal ass kicking, but I can’t properly express how great it felt to have something fade into the shadows.

Yesterday, I started thinking about this old stuff because a friend forwarded me the US Department of Justice’s tweet about January being National Stalking Awareness Month. It brought up a lot of “stuff” in me from little things to the BIG thing that I had such a hard time getting over: I was stalked through 3 different states and 4 countries from the time I was 18 until just shortly after my 21st birthday.  The person responsible for this had been my boyfriend from the time I was 17 until just short of my 19th birthday.  Our relationship culminated in an incident that is certainly fodder for at least 5 posts.

He knew where I was until May of my freshman year of college.  When I went home in the summer, he didn’t know where I was, so he looked my parents up some 1,400 miles away.  Unfortunately he got my 12 year old sister on the phone, and not knowing better, told him where I was and how to reach me.  Reach out, he did–calling me, writing me traditional letters, emailing, sending me vile anonymous propaganda, and driving by my workplace.  My godmother called a friend with the Atlanta Police Department, and this stalker who has a name-Jonathan (J)-was temporarily slowed down.  J then took another reach.  He tracked down my roommate from school in her small Texas town, and started looking for an in.  In that pursuit, he got nowhere.

By the end of the year, I was feeling pretty confident that I had some relief from this situation, and was able to relax enough to begin dating again.  J started calling once more–”Can we meet?” “What are you doing?” “I miss you.” “I’m only looking for you because I think we need closure.”  My friend suggested that perhaps if I spoke to him, he’d at least get an answer one way or another and let it all go.  So, I did answer the phone once, and I did tell him I was going on holiday skiing; that I was seeing someone.  He again asked if we could get together some time for “closure.”  In a feat of “power taking” I said, “Why don’t we meet for lunch?”  He said, “You know I don’t eat lunch.”  I returned, “My point exactly,” and hung up.

I truly thought that was the end of it until I went for a semester abroad the following summer.  When I got to my hotel in London there was a cryptic and disturbing message waiting for his “little school girl.”  While I was away, a cruel piece of mail showed up at my home in Atlanta. I had email in Greece and Italy asking how I was enjoying certain things.  When my boyfriend came to get me in the airport upon my return, J was not too far off.

My life became a conflicted mess of not wanting to change my behavior or movements just because of some psycho and, alternately, wanting to stay inside all the time.  It reminds me of just shortly after 9/11 when the government urged us all to show the world that Americans keep going on about our business–never giving in, while so many of us were terrified to our souls.  Marriage was a reprieve from J’s nonsense.  My name changed, and so did my address.  I never heard from him again, but I still found it hard to be in certain neighborhoods or places where I thought he might see me.

The funny thing about stalking, or really, any behavior that is abnormal to typical relationships is that sometimes any old person could just imply that you might be overreacting.  There’s been a lot of talk about “the little things” lately, and the truth is that if it makes you uncomfortable or feel as if your privacy has been breached, it’s wrong.  When you say it’s wrong, it is.  If you feel like the guy on the subway is sitting too close or the girl who turns up on every aisle of the drugstore with you is strange, you have every right to those feelings.  You’re also allowed to complain, and to do what you have to do to make your level of disquiet stop.

The DOJ says that “stalking is a course of conduct directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to feel fear.”  I would go a step further to say that it doesn’t really matter what the intention of the person who is doing the encroaching is.  If you feel fear, the damage is done.

How many of us have listened to friends or family talk about how “psycho” someone is behaving, or what a “freak” someone is–male or female.  They could be talking about the person who Googles them all the time, attempts to instant message them relentlessly, the person who follows too closely in traffic for their liking, who stands too close, talks too close–all of which outwardly seem benign, or they could be referencing a person who won’t stop calling, emailing, sending letters or packages, shows up at work or social events for no reason.  They could be talking about the person who might eventually be waiting for them to be alone–for no reason that is good.

So, here it is: I’m tired of hearing from people who don’t feel justified in owning their gut feelings. It’s good enough and valid enough.  Nobody has to take or sweat the little things, and just call them little things.  Tiny infractions that stress a person out are taking tiny moments from a life.  These tiny moments add up. They chip away at an existence.  They might be the reason someone is reticent to enter new crowds or why someone is fearful when walking alone.

Many of us work really hard to lead a liberated existence. We’re all overcoming something, and in that process, we have to learn to trust ourselves and what our guts are saying.  (Guts are pretty smart, after all.)

blackbird claw, raven wing
under the red sunlight
long clothesline, two shirt sleeves
waving as we go by

hundred years, hundred more
someday we may see a
woman king, wristwatch time
slowing as she goes to sleep

black horse fly, lemonade
jar on the red ant hill
garden worm, cigarette
ash on the window sill

hundred years, hundred more
someday we may see a
woman king, sword in hand
swing at some evil and bleed

black hoof mare, broken leg
eye on the shot gun shell
age old dog, hornet nest
built in the big church bell

hundred years, hundred more
someday we may see a
woman king, bloodshot eye
thumb down and starting to weep

–iron&wine