Circling the Drain: A Love Story

In my lap she laid, gasping for breathe through blood-filled lungs, staring into my soul with that cold, dead gaze I had come to know intimately. I loved her more than I ever loved myself. In many ways she was the beginning of me. Had my life stayed its course she would have been the end of me as well. It’s the details we remember afterward that come to define our experiences. It’s the sensations we can’t forget that determine who we’ll be when all is said and done. There is a reality that sets in when the handcuffs click into place.

In the days since I have had ample time to scrutinize my life. What I found was logic similar to M. C. Escher’s Relativity. The embarrassment boils my guts like sap in a maple log fire. Our long-term, public romance ended as dramatically as it began. I disappeared before word got out to avoid the squinting eyes of judgment locking down on my every move. A once prolific and fiery love affair became my misery and shame, my poverty and grief. My only choice was to become a shadow in the town’s memory, the discolored paint where a picture had hung for years.

My first true love was a slow-drip of poison and I stood by her all the while. Weightless in the gravity of my consequences, I circled the drain nightly convinced it would never run out of water. No one ever said she was wrong for me except my mother. Damn… why didn’t I listen to my mother? We always think we know better than our parents. Now I eat humble pie at the table quietly. It is filled with my words, every last one of them used to praise my former lover, topped in dollops of regret for embracing a life that relied too heavily on her and barely on me.

What’s lost in the controversy of our relationship is what she meant to me. We were never really partners of a committed sort. She was an escape from reality meant to ease the sting of shortcomings I eventually came to realize she enabled. Every night I found myself wrapped in her arms and intoxicated by the warmth and acceptance; a mosaic of comforts massaging my body and mind until I awoke to the emptiness of my bed and existence.

More and more I looked forward to my nightly respite in paradise. The anticipation of her inside my every cell grew to become a necessity. I could have normality by day and liberation by night: a functional, unassuming day followed by an evening of hijinks and debauchery. Each day ended in bliss, having reveled with my comrades and thoroughly enjoyed my sweetheart.

The truth of it is, I loved her but I didn’t respect her. Not enough, anyway. She was my beloved but never really my friend. Our relationship was killing me and I knew it in my heart. She spent all my money, toyed with my emotions, and led me so far down a dark path I lost my identity and all sense of right and wrong. I’ll never fault her, though. I blame myself for being so goddamned foolish.

Weakness is hard for any man to admit, though I can honestly say I was never addicted to her. Now that she’s gone I barely think about her. The lust to have her in control of me has subsided completely. But when I held her… I was my frailest. I loved the escape more than any day of reality I could remember. It was never her substance I was attracted to; I was drawn to the environment in which she dwelled and the fantasy I entered the instant we touched.

Deep down I knew I would never quit her until something larger than me forced my hand. Guess I always imagined it would be a doctor stepping into an examination room, a furled brow with various colored papers on his clipboard, setting his hand gently on my shoulder and telling me with certainty that if I continued on this way I would be dead by forty. This would set forth an astonishing reversal of lifestyle, first by marrying the only woman who stuck by me through the worst, and ending with nice kids and retirement from a mid-level career. An Oscar-worthy role, no doubt, but this was no movie and the reality was that a judge would be handing down my ultimatum instead.

There is a reality that sets in when the handcuffs click into place. For me, I was finally free. I could never leave her willingly so I killed her with the very negligence she instilled in me. A coward’s path, I know, but one never knows how they will react when trapped on a hamster wheel and suddenly aware of it. The bravest souls walk away and wash their hands of the cycle. The rest of us pull the plug and pray the strainer keeps us from disappearing.

Love Conquers Thyself: Conspiracy, Christianity, and Our Chemical Voice

A Google search on the word “love” produces roughly seven billion, thirty million responses. Love is mentioned in nearly every movie and book created, and is, if not about the absence of, the inspiration for art of every medium. We use this word every day to describe our affection for any manner of person, object or situation. But do we really know what love is? The answer is no. Love is a myth, and what was a comforting fabrication has snowballed into a worldwide delusion of expectations that undermine our biology.

First, we need to view love in the abstract. Because a mere four-letter word supports a multitude of definitions, both personal and communal, we must remove ourselves from the idealism to see it objectively for what it is; a simple creature burdened with representing our every motive for existence.

Let us establish a few baselines to ensure we agree on the definition of love. We agree that: love represents support - “If I love something I support it.”; that love represents acceptance – “If I love something I accept it wholly and welcome it into my life”; that love represents caring – “If I love something I honestly worry for its welfare and will care for it”; and that love represents comfort – “If I love something I choose to comfort it and take comfort in it.”

Let us also agree that there is no empirical chemical or physical evidence establishing the existence of love. There are no documented, confirmed connections between brainwave patterns and thought processes associated solely with love. All “proof” is anecdotal at best.
The biggest weakness in love’s myth is the lack of clear definition. Every dictionary requires a host of explanations to capture its substance. Thesauruses are just as beguiled, associating an array of words from “attachment” to “cherish” to “yearning” to “glorify”. This broadness leads to interpretation, and interpretation leads to confusion and fallacy. Woody Allen best captured love’s circular logic in Love and Death:

To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering one must not love. But then one suffers from not loving. Therefore to love is to suffer, not to love is to suffer. To suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy then is to suffer. But suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be unhappy one must love, or love to suffer, or suffer from too much happiness. I hope you're getting this down.

As described through generations of literary expression, the idea of love is pure; an altruistic expression of whole acceptance and, in the mating sense, an opting for more intimate interpersonal relations. The fabric of it comforts people from beginning of life to the brink of death. It is the balancing opposition to evil, providing a shelter from hatred and sound reason to forego violence. It is the marathon of devotion, a commitment to everlasting fidelity after the physical expression is gone. Although these are positive aspects of love, we must also recognize that these are the main expectations of religious tenet.

Love, as an entity, holds so many similarities to modern Christianity that it is difficult not to consider it an integrated belief system. It views itself as a uniting force while downplaying its destructive potential and history. Thousands have killed in the name of it. Millions profit from it daily. Love is heaven for the lovers and hell for the lonely. We need only look to the bloody crucifix and the breaking heart-shape to see congruencies in their symbolic idols. The most defining similarity, though, is the millions of people the world around who believe firmly in love’s presence in the absence of pragmatic proof. Believers claim “feeling” love, just as Christians attest to “feeling” God inside of them, but neither claim provides a commonsensical explanation nor can authenticate existence. It is its own religion, complete with cryptic messages, twisted variations and an intangible existence.

The only proof given that love exists is anecdotal; situations in which a person experiences extreme emotion, typically of a devotional sort, that is so powerful they find no other words to describe it. It not only transcends language, but the physical response is also bewildering and indescribable. But becoming clammy, ashen and bereft of proper descriptors when in the presence of an important person, or bearing an unyielding responsibility for family, does not necessitate an oversimplification in order to understand and provide comfort. When is it solely the innate response, through the bonds of shared DNA, to protect the species? When is it merely a person with limited vocabulary experiencing natural physiological stress symptoms associated with homosapien mating habits? By combining beautiful human interactions, like romantic yearning and kindred accountability, into one general “feeling” we trivialize our intricate chemistry and relationships.

The danger of love’s presence nowadays is the same danger archaic religious modalities pose on modern society. It was constructed in an era when life necessitated moral law and the commandments were gaining behavioral control of the masses by way of fear. Monogamy encouraged marriage, a man-made institution critical in building the family structure we would eventually shape our laws around. Now marriage, more specifically the wedding, is a multibillion-dollar generator in the U.S., binding two individuals legally for shared health benefits and tax purposes. Sitting atop the celebration and commerce is the figurehead of the industry: love, a puppet master pulling the strings of 5,690 joyous occasions per day (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services).

If love is the basis of marriage, why is there no standard for verification that a couple is in fact in love before they get married? The only qualification for this privilege is a litmus test of one’s current emotional state, which is essentially a collection of chemical reactions to internal desires and outside stimuli from their environment. Love is, for all intents and purposes, made up. Yet we rest such powerful implications, from spousal privilege to U.S. citizenship, on the shoulders of an oral tradition.

We are taught early on to find our Prince Charming or Cinderella. The values bestowed upon us in childhood are the same our parents and their parents were raised with: delusions of potential grandeur in monogamy, a lottery of sorts that could bring prosperity and life-long happiness to you regardless of your station. Neglected in this utopian vision, however, are the lovers forced to sacrifice their indoctrinated expectations when they learn perfection is not a likely scenario. To account for the majority of people failing the fairytale standard, we have painted over the margin of error with an industry of surface reinvention.

We still praise characteristics of fertility and health, but the metaphysical has been replaced almost exclusively by aesthetics. We have effectively reinvented secondary sex traits and placed an emphasis on possessing them. Primary sex characteristics are now enlarged surgically to represent ancillary virility and femininity. We have perfumes to mask our natural pheromones, designer clothing to label our bodies, and money and notoriety to distract from shortcomings. Qualities that lead one to find “true love” have been purchased by corporations, manufactured, and sold back to us as “true beauty”. People are now scientifically engineered and adorned to trigger the feelings attached to love spontaneously, further diminishing the effectiveness of our natural chemistry.

Love implies rules unnatural to the human organism. In its ubiquitous form, it belies warranted negativity and unreasonably suggests peace in matters too complicated to lay down arms. As its romantic embodiment, it encourages monogamy for the sake of commerce when coupling is no longer necessary to the species. It perpetuates a grandiose idealism that builds false hope, compromising our ability as youngsters to differentiate lust from long-term, and compromising our ability as adults to merge our expectations with the realistic landscape of society. In the end, the term “love” marginalizes the complexity of human emotion by squeezing our romantic yearnings, our nurturing impulses, our mating habits and our aversions to violence into a simple, single word incapable of translating even one definition thoroughly.

Love does not conquer all, it only conquers those foolish enough to place their faith in a myth. Turn off the fairytales. Learn your physiology. Let peace happen. Enjoy your companion and tend to your kin. There is no need to translate emotion verbally because we are built with senses capable of communicating with one another. If you truly “love” someone, they will know how you feel in every touch, in every glance, and with every minute spent in their presence. When all the words are gone we can finally break the chains of language’s contraint and enjoy the subconscious whispers of our anatomy, as the only language left will be spoken by our bodies.





Works Cited

Allen, Woody. Love and Death. Los Angeles: United Artists, 1975. Print.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Births, Marriages, Divorces, and Deaths: Provisional Data for 2009. Vol. 25.: National Vital Statistics Reports, 2010. Print.

Same-Sexism Marriage: A Tragedy Made in History

The battle for civil rights burned over centuries, eventually forcing the hand of government to produce multiple legislations making human rights a reality for millions of Americans. Blacks became free to pursue a mutual existence in America while women secured laws protecting their jobs, safety and bodies. Now we turn our attention to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community. Homosexuals are the modern minority, and the current momentum of their civil rights movement has made federal recognition nearly inevitable. That being said, gay males will be allowed to marry legally before lesbians.

Although this seems impossible considering the temperament of feminism and unity we currently live in, the idea that males will precede females in constitutional freedom is not only plausible, it is the more likely scenario, and for one primary reason: History repeats itself.

In the current climate of gender-unified thinking, it would be easy to assume that legislation will encompass gays and lesbians as a whole. However, civil rights can be dealt exclusively by sex, and we need only look to the late 1860’s to find evidence of such provision. The struggle for black and women’s rights endured collectively until the Fourteenth Amendment, which broadened the definition of U.S. citizenship and negated legislation that intentionally neglected male minorities. This cleared a path for the Fifteenth Amendment to permit voting rights regardless of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude"; a huge step for our country, but one major detail was omitted: gender (US Const., amend. XV, sec. 1). Men of every color could now vote because the Fourteenth Amendment specified “male citizens twenty-one years of age”, but women remained sidelined during elections because the Fifteenth Amendment ignored any correction of their slight (US Const., amend. XIV, sec. 2).

This development not only fractured relations between the women’s rights movement and the black rights movement, it split suffragists down the middle. “Many abolitionists initially advocated universal suffrage, for both African Americans and women. When that was made impossible by the insertion of the word male in the 14th and 15th amendments, [they] campaigned against any amendment that would deny voting rights to women. Among their opponents were former allies… who argued that it was “the Negro’s hour” and that women’s suffrage would have to wait.” (Hewitt)

White women had always possessed more rights than blacks, including “… the right to own real property in their own names, make contracts, speak freely, and so on” (Amar 5). However, with the Fourteenth Amendment snub and the Fifteenth Amendment’s 1870 ruling, all women took a back seat to all men. Color barriers fell but women’s voting rights were set on the backburner, simmering until the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. It took women fifty more years to find gender equality in voting. Therefore, it should be no stretch to imagine gay’s marriage rights preceding lesbian’s rights in an upcoming amendment.

This was not the last time women would wait longer for rights. One of the last frontiers is an ongoing battle for equality that rages to this day, and it is one freedom they wouldn’t start making progress on until the 1940’s.

Black men had fought in U.S. wars since the American Revolution. The first step in acceptance of the black soldier came by way of a speech from Gen. Andrew Jackson in 1814:

Through a mistaken policy you have heretofore been deprived of a participation in the glorious struggle for national rights in which our country is engaged. This no longer shall exist. As sons of freedom, you are now called upon to defend our most inestimable blessing… To every noble hearted, generous, freeman of color, volunteering to serve during the present contest with Great Britain… there will be paid the same bounty in money and lands … Due regard will be paid to the feelings of freemen and soldiers. You will not… be exposed to improper comparisons or unjust sarcasm. As a distinct independent battalion or regiment… you will, undivided, receive the applause and gratitude of your countrymen. (Proclamation)

Women have been a part of the U.S. military since the Revolutionary War as well, but only in an auxiliary capacity. Forbidden from nearing camp or combat, they were forced to dress as men in order to sneak their way onto platoons and into battle. The first was Deborah Sampson, who enlisted as a Continental Army soldier under the name of her deceased brother, Robert Shurtliff Sampson (The New York Times). Women went so far as to offer their services to the President personally, as documented by Annie Oakley’s letter to William McKinley:

Hon Wm. McKinley, President

Dear Sir, I for one feel confident that your good judgment will carry America safely through without war. But in case of such an event I am ready to place a company of fifty lady sharpshooters at your disposal. Every one of them will be an American and as they will furnish their own arms and ammunition will be little if any expense to the government.

Very truly,

Annie Oakley (Oakley)

Unfortunately, the lack of female involvement in the Union army played cleanly into the hands of their antagonists. “Part of the justification for excluding women from the Fifteenth Amendment - under the theory that it was "the black man's hour" - was precisely that women had not served in the Union army. We now begin to see an interesting link in Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment between the presumptive militia - male citizens over twenty-one years of age residing in the state - and presumptive voters.” (Amar 5) The Fourteenth Amendment specified military requirements for the purpose of giving black male adults civil rights and in doing so facilitated the omission of women from the Fifteenth Amendment.

All through American history women have played vital roles in our wars, but they were not recognized officially until July of 1943 when a bill allowed the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps to drop “Auxiliary” from its title, thus making it a part of the regular army. Although progress has been steady in the fight for female soldier rights, larger achievements have been elusive. Women account for only 14% of the active military and, to this day, are still restricted from positions of combat. And it’s not for a lack of evidence to the contrary (Department of Defense). An excerpt from Sect. IV, Part B. of the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services, 2010 Report (16):

Recommendation:
[Department of Defense (DOD)] should eliminate the 1994 combat exclusion policy… thereby ending gender-based restrictions on military assignments. Concurrently, DoD and the services should open all related career fields/specialties, schooling and training opportunities that have been closed to women as a result of the DoD combat exclusion…

Reasoning in Support of the Recommendation:
Opening up all… opportunities that have been closed to women will contribute to national security and to the readiness of the forces by permitting commanders to fully employ their personnel without regard to gender. In addition, eliminating gender-based assignment restrictions will promote equal opportunity because the restrictions bar women from certain military assignments without regard to their qualifications... As has been apparent for a number of years, women are performing direct ground combat jobs and performing them well. Whatever may have been the basis of the combat exclusion policy in 1994, it is no longer warranted.

Yet the Department of Defense remains defiant in their justification. “... [R]easons for continuing the ground combat exclusion policy… officials said they believed that “integrating women into ground combat units would not contribute to the readiness and effectiveness of those units” due to the nature of direct ground combat and the way individuals need to perform under those conditions. The DOD official providing the briefing said that physical strength and stamina, living conditions, and lack of public support for women in ground combat were some of the issues considered.” (United States. General Accounting Office 6)

The phrase “living conditions” is mentioned repeatedly in the DOD’s reasoning; a reference to women needing separate barracks and facilities from men. The tacit implication is the threat male enlistees are to women in the service. According to the study Factors Associated With Women’s Risk of Rape in the Military Environment, out of a 640 current and retired female soldiers, 79% reported sexual harassment and 54% reported unwanted sexual contact. 30% endured at least one completed or attempted rape; of these victims, 37% experienced multiple attacks while 14% were subjected to gang-rape (Sadler 266). Regardless the strides in equality the military makes, the most important achievement will be extinguishing the continued, and well chronicled, mistreatment of female soldiers. This evidence clearly shows that the U.S. military is nowhere near a functional integration of women as they have yet to provide adequate protection and indiscriminately prosecute sex offenders within their ranks.

It has been a long, brutal struggle for women to get where they are today. After centuries stripped of rights equality has been achieved, and there are more freedoms on the horizon. Unfortunately they remain on the far side of a thicket dense with briars: lower wages, objectification, rape. Although civil rights efforts for male minorities were also wearisome and costly, freedoms came to fruition far more quickly. With the next big civil rights push in America being LGBT equality, history will repeat itself, allowing gay males the federal right to marry before lesbians.



Works Cited

Amar, Akhil Reed. “The Fifteenth Amendment and Political Rights.” Faculty Scholarship Series. Yale Law School Legal Scholarship Repository, 1996. Web. 2 Nov. 2011. .

“Deborah Sampson: How She Served as a Soldier in the Revolution - Her Sex Unknown to the Army.” The New York Times 8 Oct. 1898: Print.

Department of Defense. “Female Active Duty Military Personnel by Rank/Grade.” DoD Personnel & Procurement Statistics. Department of Defense, 30 Sept. 2009. Web. 2 Nov. 2011. .

Hewitt, Nancy A. “Abolition & Suffrage.” PBS. Public Broadcasting Service, Web. 3 Nov. 2011. .

Human Rights Campaign, comp. “Same-Sex Relationship Recognition Laws: State by State.” Human Rights Campaign. Human Rights Campaign, 25 June 2011. Web. 2 Nov. 2011. .

Jackson, MG. Andrew. “Proclamation.” Head Quarters, 7th Military District. 21 Sept. 1814. Niles’ Weekly Register 3 Dec. 1814: 13. Print.

Oakley, Annie. Letter to President William McKinley. 5 Apr. 1898. Records of the Adjutant General’s Office, 1780’s–1917, Record Group 94. N.p.: n.p., n.d. N. pag. The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration . Web. 2 Nov. 2011. .

Sadler, Anne G., et al. “Factors Associated With Women’s Risk of Rape in the Military Environment.” American Journal of Industrial Medicine 43 (2003): 262-273. Print.

United States. Defense Advisory Committee. “IV. 2010 DACOWITS RECOMMENDATIONS AND REASONING IN SUPPORT OF THOSE RECOMMENDATIONS.” Women in the Services 2011. Washington: DACOWITS, 2011. B. ASSIGNMENTS. Print.

United States. General Accounting Office. Gender Issues: Information on DOD’s Assignment Policy and Direct Ground Combat Definition. Washington: GAO, 1998. Print.

Active Listening: The Modern Couple’s Al Qaeda

“It’s like you don’t hear a word I say anymore. Like you’ve grown tired of understanding me.”

This was what Anna said before she moved out five years ago. Technically, she said a lot of things before the door finally shut, unfortunately this is the only statement I remember and I just remembered it Thursday.

While holding up the alley wall of a downtown dive, I was lucky enough to share my cigarette with the millionth arguing couple of the evening. Being only the three of us in that damp, reverberating tunnel of early-twenties angst, I was an involuntarily witness to the dramatic reenactment of every breakup I experienced between ’02 and ’07, including Anna’s.

She wanted to leave earlier.

He didn’t know because he can’t read minds.

He should know her by now.

Blah, blah, blah.

This continued on through the myriad of classic problems all of us experience when communicating with the opposite sex.

When you no longer yearn to know what the other person is thinking, the relationship has run its course. It’s harsh but true.

We have filled our lives with subterfuge to the point where we can barely identify the needs of the person closest to us. I stopped caring what Anna thought or said. Not rudely but complacently, seeing as two years prior I was hanging from her every syllable. I allowed the minutia of life to blind me from the responsibility I assumed when I told her I loved her and would do anything for her.

“We have communication problems because you’re phoning it in half the time,” Anna once texted.

We’ve all heard the comedian’s riff on relationships: what she says vs. what he hears. It’s exaggerated, but what makes it funny is that it’s rooted in truth. Now, what if that same routine included how our communication issues stem from inflated self-worth, impossible needs and expectations, and an entertainment industry selling dishonesty and sexism dirt cheap? It probably wouldn’t go over like gangbusters because the truth is never funny. In fact it’s ugly and its mother dresses it funny.

Anna: “You should have known I wanted a red coat. How do you not know by now that I love red? Everything I own is red.”

Atticus: “Exactly. Everything you own is red. Thought you might want to step out a bit and try something new. Oh, and about the coat, you’re welcome.”

The degeneration of intersex communication is almost Pavlovian. Early in a relationship we are starving for sex, comfort, sex, companionship, sex; a hungry kid hears the ice cream truck a mile away. As time passes, the fragments of reality reassemble and we get lost again in the mundane. The hunger that drove us was rewarded with companionship, and like a kid that eats ice cream every day, we begin taking for granted the deliciousness of love because we are no longer thankful for it. We have been conditioned only to expect it.

How do we right the ship? Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus is absurdist guruism that complicates our instincts. Besides, the title is caustic and tantamount to an anatomy teacher reciting, “Milk, milk, lemonade…”. In my opinion, the solution is far simpler than we believe.

The ability to communicate well with your partner is a free choice made every day. Tear yourself away from the reality show and ask your boyfriend how his day was. Stop playing videogames for ten minutes and clean up the kitchen with your wife. Take a night off from partying with your friends to cuddle up on the couch and take in a movie. If you genuinely want this person in your life, you need to make them an active part of your life. We assume the roles of mother/father, cook/handyman, cleaner/provider, but we forget that the person making us dinner or working fifty hours every week needs to be listened to and loved just like us.

The best part about Anna was her smile, and in the clutter of everyday life I stopped trying to see it.