The Plan is not Happy

My wish as a little girl was to be funny. To say and do things that would make the other kids crack up--that means they like you. That's a sharp contrast from what I was told--that being teased and bullied was how kids show that they like you. And that the laughter you hear is of them laughing "with you" not at you.

Also, being funny means you know something that other people know and the laughter is a secret code of understanding.

I clearly didn't understand the other kids and they didn't understand me. This brings me to my other wish.

For as long as I recall I remember being drawn to other girls--not girlie things like dolls and dresses but girls. I was willing to put up with those girlie fascinations because of my own specific fascinations. The older girls, the smart girls, the girls with brown hair and glasses, they lit me up with sweet feelings.

But I knew I wasn't going to get what I wanted. This lively thing inside of me would never get to come out. My peculiar humor and warm feelings bubbled under the surface. I had a strange hope that the aching, visceral feeling ripping my chest could fit into "the plan". The plan to eventually belong to some boy and to be a wife and to put aside childish fascinations. This plan didn't give me any feeling except wondering when this magic switch would be thrown and it would all feel ok.

I started to wonder if I was destined for a cheap rip off of what life was supposed to be--if that was all that was available for me if I couldn't make the plan work. I had the feeling I might never be fully happy.

And that was it. The happiness I felt around girls as I grew and matured filled me and drove my imagination and will to create--if only to give my fascination of the moment the things I made. I grew up surrounded by a chorus of unwitting muses. My mother noticed and told me I was like a little boy trying desperately to get some girls attention. She was so right even though I know she was trying to shame me away from it. I couldn't help myself--how I felt was extraordinary. I wanted the feeling but I also wanted to be good--a good daughter, child of God, accepted in the pack.

And as I grew I started to be accepted in the pack. To distance me from the distracting threats of violence of my peers, Mother sent me to an all girls school. I made friends who got my jokes. I discovered writing. My life improved. But to fully be accepted I needed to deal with the plan. To fit myself in a box--a box that would hold me, the plan, and my burgeoning heart.

I got a non demanding boyfriend with clammy hands but kept finding ways to cuddle with my best friends. I knew to fulfill the promise of the plan I had to leave the paradise of the girls school and straighten myself out. I turned down Smith for a co-ed college--UC Santa Cruz. I knew nothing about this school except men went there too and it was close to home but not so close that I wouldn't have a chance to figure things out on my own.

On the eve of my departure I had a vivid dream. I was on foot at the gateway of the school. The road up the hill (to the shining city on a hill) was lined with beautiful long haired women. One approached me and kissed me on the mouth. I bolted awake with my chest throbbing. This was not the "plan" I envisioned.

A month later I abandoned the plan for good. Life didn't get easier. My father died a few months later. My mother, overcome with grief, lashed out at me for my willful queerness. I made bad choices too--the first I will call the 18 month experiment in how to break up with a drug addict. There were many others.

Most of my bad choices involved choosing the wrong people to explore love with (because now we can call it by its proper name--not the nameless sweet feeling but love). But I was finally free to make bad choices in love and to call it love! This is what a free person does. And the freedom to make bad choices is part of happiness--because that is how you choose the right person--the one who understands your jokes. The one you would not have found by following a plan.