Chapter 24

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results

Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

From:

Subject:  What the hell?

To:

So in a nutshell, Angela had one of her hyper-emotional, melodramatic outbursts last week about NOTHING. I told her to just chill out, and I haven’t heard from her since. I just don’t think that girl is happy unless there’s some sort of quasi-tragedy going on in her life. 

Anyway, you know what’s interesting? Sometimes I’ll wind up writing things that at the time seem completely relevant and perhaps even profound, but when I read them the next day they make no sense at all, either subjectively or even grammatically. However, there are times when I’ll go back to it and suddenly it all makes sense for some reason. Does this mean I’m like two different people? Or that two different people are me? Or that I just can’t stand two different people? Or that two different people are pulling me in opposite directions?

You should see the e-mail I recently sent to my friend Joe. It’s like I’m just basically freaking NUTS, rambling and rambling about irrational nonsense almost like I’m doing a bad impression of William S. Burroughs. I wrote things to him like, “Take the bad laughs frozen loud without two quick outs for searing brain-sick lovelies, forcemeat gone gooey between the wind and the water with no time left to hold the poor peasants above the golden dome.” Crap like that. What the hell was I TALKING about? I didn’t take mushrooms or LSD or anything like that, and I didn’t drink that much, either. When I was younger I used to sleepwalk frequently, and I’m wondering if that’s the kind of crap I’m doing again.

In a word, I’m worried. Last night, I swear to God I didn’t do any major drugs except for drinking a few beers and smoking some weed. I remember going to bed perfectly well, too, but this morning when I woke up there was a DVD in my player that I have no recollection of watching, and there were e-mails that I sent to you and Joe- The both of you wrote things to me like “Are you on mushrooms” (that was yours, of course), and “Are you dropping acid again?” (that was his). His went on with a lot harsher accusations, though. He knows me better than you. It’s messed up when you wake up to something like that and have no idea where it came from, especially considering that I DIDN’T take mushrooms OR acid. 

Anyway, I don’t know. Screw it. All I can say to you right now is to read whatever I write and take it with a grain of salt.

I might be sleepwalking and perhaps “sleep writing” again. I haven’t had an episode of that crap in a while, though. I used to go to bed in one place and wake up in the next room, and sometimes I’d have pieces of paper with random attempts at surrealistic poetry strewn all over the floor around me. Sometimes I’d go to bed (relatively sober, mind you) and suddenly I’d wake up standing in my kitchen next to the microwave with a bag of Oodles-of-Noodles on the counter. 

Well, we shall see. I shall monitor my situation. I shall smoke a joint now, drink a Sam Adams Winter Lager, and get my ass to bed. 

Yours in madness,

Rutherford (a.k.a. Der Shcnitzen Haven)

Lori drove along the Mass turnpike, trying to admire the beautiful browns, pinks and yellows of the blur of sleepy trees guarding the roadside.  Autumn was usually her favorite time of the year, and viewing the fall foliage at peak season was her main reason for taking the drive in the first place. Yet the scratching and clawing of anxiety-driven demons against the lining of her gut was making it impossible to appreciate it as fully as she would have liked to. She just couldn’t understand why she seemed so unable to step out of her own way. 

As the days swept past, their sunlight shone down on a growing inner strength while the moonlight of the evenings reflected a looming sense of tranquility.  She threw herself into her studies with a passion and zeal that were invincible even in the face of all the continuing existing uncertainty. And she dreamt of endless possibilities, of finding real connections with real people, of brewing a fine mix of separateness and union and drinking up its intoxicating splendor.  Life, at the moment, seemed full of promise.  Life, at the moment, felt surprisingly free.  She still thought of Nick, yet the uneventful passage of time was making his image more of an enigma to her than a painful obsession.  And for that alone, life was perhaps the freest it had ever been.

Only one week into her newfound bliss, she received a phone message from Nick explaining to her that he had lost her e-mail address and asking that she start writing to him again. The sage inside her head shook with fear and cowered in the uncontrollable wrath of the toothless, drooling retread manning her heart. She sat down in front of the computer, hesitantly switched it on, and stared sadly at its slowly forming screen.

From:  

mmmmmmm

yes?

From:  

mmmmmmm

when?????

She sighed loudly, the only evidence that her inner sage, although completely useless, was still conscious.  She was so rarely placed in a situation where she knew she had complete control to make things better; where just a simple stroke of a few computer keys could make a colossal disturbance in her life disappear without a trace. Yet with all of her power something much bigger than her was keeping her from using it. 

From:  

eventually

From:  

why not tonight?

From:  

busy

From:  

doin what?

where have my emails gone?

you usually write me a bunch

u mad at me?

From:  

so what sup

From:  

no- not mad

just busy

From:  

why whats new?

what do you have planned for this evening?

From:  

might exercise 

From:  

exercise?

what we do or real exercise?

From:  

REAL EXERCISE

From:  

ahhh well after give me a call on my cell phone

From:  

o.k. to tell you i’m still busy

From:  

so what is the problem?

seems like your mad

From:  

not mad

promise

just a lot on my plate right now

From:  

why whats wrong

pleeze tell

im here to help

ill put a big smile on those lips of yours

From:  

you haven’t gotten laid in a while, have you?

From:  

not since the last time i told you … im honest!

so what about meeting and eating tonight

From:  

i’m not in  the mood

From:  

damn … you’re moody …

From:  

so u gonna call me tonight to help you put a smile on your face … come on we can go to my house … my room … my bed 

The upsurge of attentiveness continued for several days. The scales of dominance seemed to once again be tipped in Lori’s favor, yet she was not getting nearly as perverse a pleasure out of the dance as she had before. Perhaps her inner sage was not as dysfunctional as she thought; perhaps it was trying to protect her.

Yet when Nick sent her a photograph of himself, sitting lazily in front of his work computer and looking into the camera with a sardonic half-smile, she sensed vulnerability in him that she never had before.  Even if it was just fleeting, as she was sure it was, he was expressing a need for her. He was reaching out to her. And he was getting dangerously close to wrapping his fist around the goofy little retread that was licking his wounds at the base of her heart. 

From:  

what am i supposed to do with this?

From:  

i dunno … just figured u might want it… u can look at me

Following a string of playfully seductive messages, Nick finally succeeded in breaking down her resolve- weak as it already was. On one chilly night at the radio station, she nestled in the soft, spacious back seat of his car and stared into the darkness ahead.

The shine from the car’s dome light shadowed Nick’s eyes to make them look like two black pits in a featureless face. He sat in the driver’s seat with his hand impatiently clutching the steering wheel.

“It’ll go off in a second,” he said.  His body was turned to face Lori, who sat rigid in the back seat. 

After several minutes of uncomfortable silence, the air inside the car turned black. Lori kept her eyes fixed on a moonlit elm branch just outside the front windshield as Nick squeezed through the two front seats and positioned himself opposite her. He began removing his shoes, and gestured for Lori to do the same.

She knelt near him on the upholstery, her jeans rolled down past her calves and hugging her ankles. She continued to nervously stare out the windshield while Nick removed his boxer shorts and expectantly pushed his bare buttocks against the rear door. She lethargically lifted her blouse several inches above her panties, turned her head to face him, and continued raising the shirt up toward her chin.

“Take these off,” Nick commanded, fingering the elastic of Lori’s underwear and ignoring the bare skin that was revealed above her waist. 

Lori took a deep breath and let her shirt fall back over her stomach. As she slid her panties past her knees, she felt the lukewarm air from Nick’s car heater caress her thighs. She let Nick pull her hips toward his pelvis and push her down beneath him. Balls of sweat formed on his brow and dripped on Lori’s cheek. He did not look at her. With his neck strained in an upright position, he alternated only between shutting his eyelids and glancing nervously out the back window of the car in search of intruders. 

Lori turned her head to face the elm branch again. She continued staring at it until Nick finished and readily dressed himself. She did not take her eyes off of the branch until she was fully clothed as well, and even then she consciously kept it well within her peripheral vision.

As Nick turned the ignition key, silent and expressionless, fresh hot air blew against Lori from a car vent inches away from her chest. Still, there was a chill inthe air that made Lori shiver, and a frigid wind that made the dry leaves on the elm branch sway.

“Do you miss having a girlfriend?” she asked, still staring into the tiny black forest ahead of his car.

“Sometimes yes. Sometimes no,” he said. He pulled his jeans up over a hint of belly she didn’t remember him having before.

“Could you ever see yourself as monogamous, Nick?” she asked.

“Yeah, I guess,” he said. “If it all fell into place.”

She was quiet. If it all fell into place, she thought.A familiar tingle crept up the sides of her neck.  And what would make it all fall into place, Nick?

“I’ve been hurt by you before, and I’m afraid of getting hurt again,” she said.

“O.K. Then just keep telling me no.” He gave her a nervous smile, and started to tie one of his shoes.  “Just keep saying no to me.”

He brought her to silence again. She watched him make his loops and pull the strings taut on one shoe. He reached into the back seat to grab the other. It was obvious he was not going to deny the possibility of hurting her. Again.

“I can’t do that,” she said. “It doesn’t work. It’s an endless cycle with us.”

He shrugged and smiled. 

“What do you want?” she asked.

Still grinning foolishly, he opened his eyes wide and said, “You have to be the one to decide. Not me.”

She said nothing for a moment. She started to gather her belongings and opened the car door.  “You know, we have absolutely nothing in common.”

He sat staring at her, with the same strange, contented look on his face. “We have sex in common.”

She looked up toward the car’s ceiling and blew a stream of air out of her mouth. “Even sitting here with you now is painful. Because I have no idea what to talk to you about.”  She turned her body and stepped outside the car. “We never have anything to say to each other.”

He waited a few seconds before responding. “You have to just … not think so much about things. Just … go with the flow.” 

“I know,” she said. “I think too much.” She started to walk away. “Maybe I just try to make up for those around me.” She lumbered across a patch of barely visible grass, and reached her own car only several feet away. She heard him start his engine and drive away, leaving her alone in the black emptiness of the night.

(stay tuned for chapter 25…)

Here is a link to a real-life illustration of a challenging relationship dynamic, entitled “Reeling.”

And here are some other interesting and pertinent links:

DeMars Coaching – YouTube (DeMars Coaching)

Surviving Narcissism – YouTube (Dr. Les Carter)

NARCDAILY- You Are Not Alone – YouTube (NARCDAILY- You Are Not Alone)

Lisa A. Romano Breakthrough Life Coach Inc – YouTube (Lisa A. Romano Breakthrough Life Coach Inc)

DoctorRamani – YouTube (DoctorRamani)