TWENTIES-My Artist

“Life is a big party and all you have to bring with you is...

...YOURSELF.

Are you willing to show up and celebrate?”

     Do any of you remember when Cameron Diaz dated Justin Timberlake? They were nine years apart. This was right about the time I met my free-spirited artist (and another surfer) who happened to be nine years younger. I was twenty-nine. The Hollywood couple helped me justify dating someone who wasn’t even legal to drink. My dad labeled him as my “boy toy.” I literally hid him in my house for at least six months because of my embarrassment of the age difference. I “thought” we wouldn’t last, and yet, I can say that he was a true love in my life.

     This had been my first experience fully falling for someone’s heart. My mom would even say, “He’s so sweet.” This was also the first time I really experienced someone falling for mine, treasuring me like I was Aphrodite in the flesh. His personality and appearance were an additional plus. He was funny, also. I was so relieved to date someone who could help me see that life does go on after my previous boyfriend, Jay. We met partying in The Narrows at Lake Nacimiento. While our friends were whooping it up around a campfire and making dinner, we secretively ran down to the dock, swam from boat to boat and had our first kiss at dusk in the water. I made myself feel young again. I know that could seem silly, considering I was only twenty-nine, but I was the girl who bought a book on “how to turn thirty.” A time where I truly was having MY peculiar midlife crisis. Younger friends would roll their eyes when I would panic about getting older, telling me how great I looked for my age. Outside validation is only a bandaid, and I was programmed by my father to believe that the best days of life are when we are young and free. To make my situation even more confusing, I had also been dating a thirty-nine year old man and made myself sick in deciding which relationship was best. Breaking out in hives, I felt that I SHOULD go for the responsible man with a “good job,” not some unreliable surfer. Doesn’t sound like a big problem. After all, I had already had cancer, TWICE. Didn’t matter. I “sweated the small stuff” like a pro, eventually breaking up with my senior and following my heart. 

     During our years together, my “blonde hair/blue eyed” surfer boy (seemed to have become a prerequisite) and I went to various reggae concerts, rented a moped in Costa Rica, partied in New Orleans, and hung out many nights with a group of about twelve friends of varying ages. He had become sponsored by Hurley, giving me all the cute surfer clothes a girl could want. As time went by, we began staying in my house like an old married couple, and he began painting. He had borrowed some of his mom’s paintbrushes and was on his way to becoming a well known artist in our area. Because I had very little talent, he became my teacher, painting for hours at my kitchen table overlooking the old oak tree. This was the first time I can remember feeling free, living in the present moment and being my truest self. I also began making jewelry, and we began selling our pieces. I was awe-struck at his talent because he was a novice, and I encouraged him enthusiastically to continue to go the distance. For (what I think) was my birthday, he painted me a picture on a huge piece of canvas that represented us, laying partially nude in the clouds. I hung it on my bedroom wall with pride. It was truly a magical time where I LET GO and LIVED. 

     As I approached my thirties, I began to know that I wanted our relationship to change. I felt like a woman who’s biological clock was ticking, who was living a life of a teenager. I wanted to get married and have babies. My artist didn’t have a place of his own and still being...well... a stereotypical artist. I urged him to get a “real” job. He went to massage school, and I received free massages from he and two other friends almost daily. Man, those were the days. To my disappointment, he wasn’t THAT motivated. I began to feel like his mother. When I got desperate enough, I mentioned to him that he could work for the county. He would then have BENEFITS (A major criteria in my father’s way of seeing things). A janitor perhaps? He looked at me like I had gone mad. Addiction never makes sense, and I was addictively demanding that he grow up, not realizing that I was the one who still needed to mature. Like my father, I wanted control. Yet another lesson to be learned.  

TWENTIES- Cancer (part 2) and Dating

“If we are not in a space of loving when we leave any relationship, we take all that unhappiness with us. Your mind says, ‘If I leave, then I’ll get some fresh air. It will give me a break.’

It won’t.”

     I turned twenty-seven, and Jay moved out of my home. My thoughts were that if he would just CHANGE, we would live happily ever after. I wanted a “family man,” and his addiction to the big waves and weed took precedence. Those were the years when I actually thought I had the power to control people, especially my boyfriend. Shortly after our break-up, I was diagnosed with a recurrence of eye cancer.  The minute Jay found out, he got off work and took me to a concert. We spent the weekend together, collecting rocks and making love. A perfect distraction. I had been dating a few different men, but NOT impressed with anyone. One happened to come over after my radiation surgery and refused to put eyedrops in my eye. AND, he was a FIREMAN. Go figure. He was the only one whom I truly regretted. And, seems to be the only one who I would occasionally bump into in this small town. It's "almost" funny how I would throw away my spiritual practice in these moments, immediately transporting my self back to my twenties where he told me to grab a condom (stored behind a picture of his ex girlfriend) before we did the deed. (True story). He obviously wasn't over her, and I obviously didn't have enough self respect to get dressed and walk- no, run- as fast as I could. There were other devaluing moments in that short time, and it became increasingly obvious that I needed to forgive myself before I could ever look at him again without judgmental thoughts. Sure enough and recently, I got another opportunity, creating nothing but peace.
     And then there was Joe. A man that I met at a dance club in Lake Tahoe on Valentine’s day, 1997. He was a pilot who had long brown hair that drove me wild. I was beyond intrigued with my latin lover, especially being that he was totally opposite of my three previous surfer boyfriends. He was the one who had a mole on his adams apple which moved up and down every time we spoke. Just call me “Shallow Hal’s” sister. When he would fly in to see me, I would totally gross myself out and do my best to avoid looking at it. Until one day, he cut it off with a razor. He said, “I am not sure if you ever noticed, but I had this mole removed because my razor kept cutting it.” Acting oblivious, “Oh no, I never noticed it.” I continued to swallow down my shallowness, refuse to see my own innocence, and put myself down for being so artificial. He’s a good catch, and I SHOULD be interested, I would think. Completely unaware of my conditioning and the importance my parents put on my appearance, I told myself that I was a “bad” person. “We can only give what we’ve got,” and I didn’t have it to give.
     To make matters “worse,” I judged him for being impotent...or something. Being completely immature, and not wanting to take responsibility for my fears, I was scared that he could be a hermaphrodite. I asked him about some “awkward” sexual moments, and he wouldn’t open up. I freaked myself out and broke up by rarely answering his phone calls. My “friend” later named him “Josephina,” and we would laugh (I knew that it was mean, but went along, regardless). Obviously, I could never write about this if I hadn’t completely forgiven myself for not being who I really am. Unconscious of my light, I was living in the matrix of the worldly world, it was going to take a miracle to get me out.