relationships

Why I Broke Up with Keith

/ Elizabeth Gaucher / 4 Comments

Breaking Up is Hard to Do

 

I’ll never forget the first time I saw him.  He was tall, impeccably groomed, unusually handsome, and cracker jack smart with a voice like deep velvet.  

I was hooked. 

It wasn’t his sex appeal that made me love him.  It was his street fighter, take-no-prisoners, full-on engagement of people who, until I met Keith, I had never seen seriously challenged.  I sat in front of the television agog as he stared directly into the camera and spoke with conviction and barely contained rage about the rationalization of torture, the deceit and conceit of elected officials, and abuse of public trust.  

And he was just warming up. 

I had to see him again.  I found out where he hung out, and with whom, and started scheduling my day around making myself available to connect with him.  I tried to be casual about it, but I think my friends could see I was becoming obsessed.  “Did you hear Keith last night?” I’d ask anyone who would listen.  I’d print transcripts of his tirades and re-read them just for the buzz. 

They say addiction is characterized by compulsive behavior one cannot control, even when that behavior is creating disintegration in and negative consequences to the individual.  I realized I had to deliver an intervention to myself.  I was in an unhealthy relationship. 

I had stopped listening to anyone but Keith.  I acted like if a person weren’t delivering a 12 minute monologue they didn’t have anything important to say.  When I took a step back from the opium den that was my TV room, I realized his confidence was not that simple.  It started to seem arrogant.  I told him I needed a break. 

After a few weeks we reconnected, but the arrogance seemed worse.  He didn’t listen to me at all, he just wanted to talk about himself.  I asked him why he was never happy and always so angry, and he went off on me for over ten minutes.  He accused me of disloyalty, wondering where I’d been.  I told him I just needed “me” time, but he waved me off in disgust. 

I still think about him from time to time.  Sometimes mutual friends will send me some of his work, but I can’t get very far.  The man broke my heart, but I have only myself to blame.  My advice?  Never trust a man whose favorite sound is the sound of his own voice, even when that voice is a really, really nice one.

The Science Fiction of Being Marilyn

/ Elizabeth Gaucher / Leave a comment

Many thanks to Chuck Hamsher for posting a reminder of the anniversary of Marilyn Monroe‘s passing on August 5, 1962.  She was a mere 36 years old when she died at her home in Los Angeles, her death ruled a probable suicide by consuming an overdose of sleeping pills.

Norma Jeane Baker

Several people commented on what made this woman so remarkable, and a common reference was to her “vulnerability.”  I’ve heard that word and variations of it used to describe Norma Jeane Baker my whole life, and not once — not once — has it rung true for me.

“Vulnerable” is a very popular and widely accepted way to label NJB.  And I will disclaim here that I know there is every possibility and probability that I just don’t get it; but I also don’t see it.  What I’ve always seen is a woman who, for whatever God-foresaken reason, became a sponge for what the rest of the world needed her to be.  She may be the most perfect reflection of a global codependent love story there ever was. 

NJB was in reality what in most human experience only exists in fantasy and story telling.  She was very much like a character from an old Star Trek episode called “The Perfect Mate.”  This character, Kamala, is described thus:

She is an empathic metamorph, a woman genetically-predisposed to suit the desires of any man she is with. She has the ability to sense what a potential mate wants, what he needs, what gives him the greatest pleasure and then to become that for him until she reaches the final stage of bonding, where she must imprint upon herself the requirements of one man, to serve as his perfect partner in life.

NJB was incredibly good at this, and that is why I think I’ve never seen her as truly vulnerable.  She impresses me as a woman who had an amazing talent in her relationships with other people, especially men, that allowed her intimate access to the likes of Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller — and my friends, that is serious range.

It is all unknowable now.  But I wonder if this lovely person did in fact connect with another individual above all others, knowing that in order to carry on her life she would need to suppress that connection and continue to meet the needs and dreams of many more in order to sustain her career.  That’s a story I can buy, and in the end would make her in fact vulnerable to only one person.

Herself.