Ghosts and Other Goblins

It’s the ghosting season and it’s got me thinking about our fascination with spirits and the undead. All those ghosts floating in and out of our lives. They’re just everywhere.

Before the modern day advent of therapy, maybe ghosts started out as our memories and hurt haunting us. All those little bits of trauma that like to stick around and pin-prick us to death and fuck up all the good things in our lives.

Ghosts are motherfuckers with nothing else to do but pester the living.

I lived with someone for a long time who I equated to living with a ghost. He was simultaneously always around and never there. And honestly, it drove me mad. The pain that relationship inflicted on my psyche traumatized me so that sometimes I don’t think I’ll ever move past it. But the uncomfortable truth is that I really like being alone. Like it it so much, in fact, that I really didn’t notice how much he wasn’t really there until it was far too late to fix it.

Having reflected on this for a number of years, I finally understand how much of the problems in my marriage stemmed from how much I really do love to be alone. I feel safe when I’m alone. I feel in control when I’m alone. And I love to be in control. Seeing as how I am the goddess of a little universe I’ve created with the Clementine Toledano Mysteries, maybe some of you aren’t surprised. I’m pretty sure there are a few writers out there who can sympathize.

The issue I face now is that I know I feel better when I let a select group of people in. But I’ve never let anyone all the way in. Not one. There is not one person on the planet who’s seen me ugly cry and freak all the way out. I do not drop my basket in front of people, y’all, ever.

Not my mama. Not my best friends. And certainly not my romantic partner. Except once. If you’re uncomfortable with over-sharing, stop reading now, because this shit is about to get real.

I had a miscarriage on my wedding night.

And it was fucking awful. All the stress and fear and anxiety of impending motherhood and the lifelong commitment I’d just made came pouring out and I screamed into my pillow in a Hilton hotel room until I was empty. I didn’t care that my new-eventually-to-be-ex-husband was there. I couldn’t muster up a shred of dignity to stop it. Looking back, I realize now that the pregnancy was confirmation that I’d made the right decision to marry him and miscarrying just a few hours after he’d vanished on our wedding night was confirmation that maybe I didn’t know him as well as I thought I did.

Before y’all start attacking First Born’s father in your heads, the problem wasn’t with him. It was with us. It was broken from the start and it’s taken me years to understand this. We just weren’t a good match. He needed me present every hour of every day and I tried so hard to provide that, until I eventually evaporated all-together and he reciprocated.

When I’m stressed or anxious, I want to be alone. I don’t want to inflict my hurt on anyone. And I didn’t realize this until I was finally in a relationship with someone who had the emotional vocabulary to make me understand. And it is the healthiest relationship I’ve ever had.

Space.

It’s the one thing we’re taught we shouldn’t ever ask for in a relationship. (Well, that and sex with other people). But what if you need space to process too much input? What if you need the quiet of your home and your pets and that little bit of safety you’ve created for yourself? That’s ok; and if you’re with the right partner they’ll even let you take it. And you need a partner who gives that to you. Because we all have our own unique needs and desires and just because the Brothers Grimm or Walt Disney or every writer of every Rom-Com ever never figured it out, it doesn’t mean we can’t all have our own happily ever after of our own choosing.

I know who I am and I am a person who needs a lot of space. Unfortunately, I’m also a person who simultaneously goes big in any relationship to make up for that distance that’s inherently in any relationship I have. If I love you, you know it. Because I don’t know how long I can sustain it before I’m just too tired to keep it up. But I’ll never ask for a break. Even if I need it. Even if I’m on the verge of a breakdown without it. 

Did I mention my divorce, y’all???

And I’ve been working on it, asking for space when I need it. Asking for closeness when I need that, too. But being open about my feelings doesn’t come natural and it’s a work in progress. It’s daily effort and self-analysis. And, honestly, it’s fucking exhausting, but I like to think it’s worth the effort. 

The best relationship I’ve ever had was one in which we saw each other maybe once a week. A take it or leave it arrangement and I don’t know what that means. But I do know it made me happy. It made me feel free. It made me feel confident and whole. It made me feel like the very best version of myself. So, now I’m beginning the think that other people’s concept of a what a relationship looks like is theirs and theirs alone. And that’s ok, too. But it shouldn’t impact what I need or what my partner needs either.

Spoiler alert: Gods and Devils is all about relationships (and stalkers, and dirty, dirty sex, you’re welcome). And working on it in such a compressed time frame has got me thinking about my own relationships and how I navigate them.

Sanger and Q were best friends before they started fucking and that is the bond they miss most when their relationships ends. The absence of that friendship tilts the entire Clementine Toledano universe off its axis. It creates a bigger void than Ben’s death. Why do you think it took me so long to finish Devil in Exile? The heart of the series isn’t Q. It’s Q and Sanger and the friendship they share.

That’s the worst part about fucking your best friend. When you break up, the one person you want to call, is the one person you can’t. 

But sometimes, giving the person you love most in the world the space and the distance they ask for, is the most loving thing you can do. Sometimes, the trust you show in that space is the most intimate expression of faith in your connection. Love doesn’t have to look the same for every person. It’s hard as a writer because I know what my characters need and those needs aren’t always palatable with my readers. I also want my characters to live full and rich lives so sometimes my readers are just going to have to deal with their decisions.

All of my characters are really just a piece of me, though. So, what does that mean? It means I might be comfortable with a little more space and distance than maybe most people might be ok with, but the good news is that I’m totally willing to wait around and continue to love you oodles even when you say you need to some space, too.