The Total Femme

I’ve never been a particularly boisterous person, nor am I a night owl in any way. In college, I was always the one whining and wanting my bed when other torrid youths were dancing their hearts out or doing drugs or whatever they were doing at 2 in the morning, and I never once pulled an all-nighter. These days, I am constantly exhausted. I can’t tell if it’s mental, spiritual, emotional, age, health, immanent demise, or what, but I am flat out knackered.

True, the world is scary. True, Seth is deeply troubled, his texts and phone calls more and more disturbing. True, my mom has only been dead a few months and I miss her so much. True, there’s been a lot of paperwork around her death, much of it quite difficult. As soon as I finish writing this, I have to go fight with her bank, again, because for some reason they can’t seem to be able to give me her last monthly statement which I need for her estate taxes. Not for love nor money nor me finally losing my cool at Chelsea, a supervisor, thundering down the phone, “You are being so rude to me IN MY TIME OF GRIEF!” I was magnificent. And came away without bank statements. We’ll see what happens when I go (again) in person. Ok. Back to being tired.

I remember being so irritated and puzzled by my grandmother’s slowing down. She had trouble threading a needle – yeah, that hole is tiny, people. Every time I manage now, the very few times I ever have to sew on a button, it’s like a major victory. I wish I had her needle threader, that cute little red plastic thing… Ah well! And just how slowly she moved, even her brain slowed down and she couldn’t get various jokes or modern happenings. It seemed so strange.

Boy do I get it now, though! I’m younger than she was then, but things have moved so so so much more quickly. I just feel like parts of my brain are fried for good. Most tellingly, I just no longer care about the kinds of pop culture hooptie that was my damn bread and butter for decades.

I feel like I’m walking a very fine line between giving up and letting go. Not letting go to make room for more stuff, letting go to just make room. To have space to take a breath. To rest. Some days I teeter closer to the LG and many days – today? Chelsea? – to the GU.

My chickadees, my nuthatches, my cooing, preening doves, are you tired the fuck out? Are you flagging, worn down, chugging uphill with all four tires losing air? Maybe it’s not anything but a healthy response to ALL THIS. Maybe it’s just a sweet whisper of love from somewhere wise within you that shutting things off and just breathing and being for a bit is not being a loser, wearing blinders, or giving up. Taking a knee is respectful. Burrowing into the sofa for a nap, preferably with a cat or a dog, is immanently sane.

Think of that, my beloveds. Now let it go.

Every Monday, I offer a Meditation for Queer Femmes, in the spirit of my maternal grandmother, Mimi, who was fabulous, and from whom I inherited her Meditations for Women.

At the Total Femme, my intention is to post three times a week: Meditations for Queer Femmes on Monday, Pingy-Dingy Wednesday on Wednesday, and Femme Friday on Friday. Rather than play catch-up in a stressful fashion on those weeks when life prevents posting, I have decided to just move gaily forward: if I miss a Monday, the next post will be on Wednesday, and so on. Thank you, little bottle of antibiotics for inspiring me in this! (“…if it’s almost time for the next dose, skip the missed dose and continue your regular dosing schedule. Don’t take a double dose to make up for a missed one.”) And…as I go through life life life, I will post as I am able, Mabel.

Years before I knew that my older son, Seth, suffered from mental health and substance abuse issues, my then-therapist would often say that loving him was a long game. From an anxious, tender, cautious child to a seriously prickly and stroppy teen, I thought Seth was just being Seth. All these many years later, years of heartbreak slowly healing thanks to Al-Anon and the company of friends and family, I’m still playing the long game with my anxious, tender, angry, struggling, and so-beloved child.

After 8 plus months in a sober house, Seth recently relapsed. I don’t know the particulars but had severe moments of panic thinking perhaps it’s my fault, since just a few days before, Tex and I had declined to lend him money, not feeling comfortable with how much he wasn’t communicating – we didn’t even know where he was living for sure. I did a lot of crying and not sleeping, but friends and Al-Anon remind me I am not Seth’s Higher Power. “Guilt is just an ego trip in reverse,” said one dear friend. That was good to remember when I was thrashing around in the middle of the night, imagining all kinds of horrors coming down on Seth’s head.

The good news is that he called me. The good news is that I’m told that relapse is a normal part of recovery. The good news is that we’re back in touch after years of me not even knowing where – let alone how – he was. As I’ve said elsewhere, it’s a different kind of agony, but is certainly one positive aspect of having played the long game. Sometimes you have to wait. And wait.

As difficult as it is, I am ok waiting now. As difficult as it was, I managed to settle into long-game mentality when he told me he’d relapsed. I told him I loved him, that I’m proud of him for how hard he’s been working, that I have confidence he’ll find his way back onto a healing path. (All that crying and thrashing mentioned above was after we’d hung up.)

The long game is opening up the view to the big sky and the beauty in the world. It’s also focusing in on and cherishing the small, profound, everyday joys.

Seth isn’t able to do that right now, being firmly situated in a negative, isolated, hopeless place. As I pray that he is receiving fellowship and kindness and support from the various communities he’s worked so hard to build up, as I turn him over to his own heart and Higher Power and strength, I will bolster myself with this focus.

Crisp and tasty, soaring, squealing, robust, vulnerable and vivacious queer femme sisters, are things too too too negatory right now for you to spotlight those sweet, small, delicacies that surface no matter what? Like Seth, is there too much weighing down your brain to be able to remember that here, too, is joy? That was me last night, trying to sleep, trying not to let my extremely nimble imagination run away from me. But this morning, I can just about pull my brain back from the brink and here, here – let me share these sweet, fleeting moments that will, if I let them, enter and heal and ever delight:

–catfood on my old cat’s nose that he purringly allows me to clean off for him

–my friend’s cockatoo, who raises her crest and dances when I sing, “How much is that Rosie in the window?”

–a video of my old friend’s wee great-niece who is showing off her dolly, named after said old friend – such an honor!

–laughing harder than I’ve laughed in a year at Owen’s, my younger son’s, description of a movie he just watched in Tokyo where he lives, the scene in question a live-action portrayal of pooping, including sumo wrestlers as the sphincter

–doggie kisses

–my spry 80-plus-year old neighbor out shoveling snow wearing his extremely bad-ass leather Harley Davidson jacket

–all the different iterations of the Boston accent I come across every day here in yon Boston area

–stopping to savor a screech owl calling, calling, one snowy suburban evening

And there are so many more!

I bet you can come up with some, too, my dearest dearies, if you breathe and think a moment. Oh, hey! Lay ‘em on me, in the comments! Or don’t, that’s ok, too, just know I know you can and do and will play the long game with me. We need each other’s company, don’t we, my sweetnesses? So alive, so despairing, so coming back around.

You and me.

Me and you.

Every Monday, I offer a Meditation for Queer Femmes, in the spirit of my maternal grandmother, Mimi, who was fabulous, and from whom I inherited her Meditations for Women.

At the Total Femme, my intention is to post three times a week: Meditations for Queer Femmes on Monday, Pingy-Dingy Wednesday on Wednesday, and Femme Friday on Friday. Rather than play catch-up in a stressful fashion on those weeks when life prevents posting, I have decided to just move gaily forward: if I miss a Monday, the next post will be on Wednesday, and so on. Thank you, little bottle of antibiotics for inspiring me in this! (“…if it’s almost time for the next dose, skip the missed dose and continue your regular dosing schedule. Don’t take a double dose to make up for a missed one.”) And…as I go through life life life, I will post as I am able, Mabel.

                

Ever since my mom died in August it’s been, I mean, ever since I got auto-immune type one diabetes last January it’s been, I mean, ever since Tex and I went through a seriously rough patch in our marriage and I left for a few months, I mean, ever since I got cancer in 2019 and my dad died and then there was the pandemic and then Tex’s chronic health issues ramped up it’s been, I mean, ever since I had to get a divorce before there was equal marriage and then my elder son, Seth, started tanking (he recently told me he started drinking in 7^th grade, I didn’t know, I didn’t know – can a heart break any more than mine already has?), I mean, ever since…. Well, it’s just been a really, really, really hard batch of years, personally, and that’s not even mentioning the wider nation and world. Tex and I have just about had it.

Bumblebees, bunny rabbits, bountiful beauties, my bitchin’ queer femme sisters, have you, also, just about had it?

At 28, Seth is currently down in Austin working on his sobriety, back in touch. The difference in agonies is profound: the agony of not knowing where he was, how he was, is now the agony of having a seat on his roller coaster of pain and shame and punishment (he punishes himself, he punishes me) as he comes into the realization that without substance, he has to step up to so many real life things, including dealing with mental health and emotional challenges, dealing with what so many years of drinking has brought down on him. Agony.

Recently, Tex and I have had, um, let’s say, vigorous conversation about the impact of Seth returning to our lives. The upshot of which is a recommittment to peace and calm where we can get it: in our own home.

We’ve long had a family rule of not approaching difficult subjects after 6pm, and we are learning how to implement more actions that result in a less stressful environment. For us, that’s stuff like more regular cleaning and decluttering (what?! I like books! and papers! and things!), planning menus so there’s less stress around meals, going to the gym, paying attention to our art, reaching out to community, neighbors, friends. Scheduling in time alone, time together. Once we set our minds to it, we knew what to do, but it’s stuff that can get lost in the stress shuffle of everything that’s going on, near and far. Easy to put down but with lasting consequence if not attended to.

Calm and peaceful also means caring for ourselves with support and company, not necessarily from each other. For me, that’s getting my femme butt back to Al-Anon meetings, going to therapy, talking about my struggles with Seth to friends other than Tex, who is an adult child, buffeted all her life by alcoholic behavior. There are times when it just isn’t fair or productive to ask her to accompany me through every agonizing twist and turn.

Butterballs, beloved bon-bons, bodacious babes, wherein lies your calm and peaceful? What does it take to get there? Can you turn your attention to that for just a bit? Wherever you are, whatever you do, can you allow cozy to be on the ascendent? Resting, insulating, being soft and sleepy doesn’t mean you’re giving up. How many of us truly believe that? Believe it, believe it, my best best besties. For how we continue, how we thrive and strengthen and bring light and joy – you know we do! – believe it.

I choose cozy.

With all my broken, healing, beating brashly and boldly big femme heart, I wish cozy for you as well.

Every Friday, I showcase a queer femme goddess. I want to feature you or someone you love! Write to me at thetotalfemme@gmail.com and let me shine a spotlight on your beautiful, unique, femme story! If you’ve written a femme story or poem or song, oh, please let me post it!

At the Total Femme, my intention is to post three times a week: Meditations for Queer Femmes on Monday, Pingy-Dingy Wednesday on Wednesday, and Femme Friday on Friday. Rather than play catch-up in a stressful fashion on those weeks when life prevents posting, I have decided to just move gaily forward: if I miss a Monday, the next post will be on Wednesday, and so on. Thank you, little bottle of antibiotics for inspiring me in this! (“…if it’s almost time for the next dose, skip the missed dose and continue your regular dosing schedule. Don’t take a double dose to make up for a missed one.”) And…as I go life life life, I will post as I am able, Mabel.