On Being Liked

I recently learned that someone hates me. I mean, this person told me, in no uncertain terms, to go to hell because they hate me.

I’m fairly sure this isn’t the first person who’s ever hated me, but it’s the first time I know it without doubt.

My initial reaction upon receiving this information was to think, “Uh-oh, I’ve got to fix this!” I thought I needed to disabuse this person of their erroneous opinion of me, outline to them my upright and admirable characteristics, set the record straight, as it were.

Then a little voice reminded me of a quote from author and psychotherapist Judy Ford: “Your opinion of me is none of my business.”

The message of hate played on a loop in my head for a day or two, interrupted now and then by Ford’s quote. I really had to chew on the two of them together for the idea to sink in and take hold.

I’ve never been a firm believer in intention. I always prize action over intention because having a thought doesn’t necessarily do anything, but taking action inevitably causes some equal and opposite reactions.

Experiencing someone’s bald hate has changed that stance a bit.

In this digital age when the click of a mouse sets off a firestorm of online reactions that can spill over into action in the real world, being liked is highly valued. At least, the superficial “like” of Facebook and Instagram reactions, which aren’t really the same thing as enjoying a person’s physical company or even laughing at someone’s jokes on the phone.

Whenever I post something on Facebook, I wait breathlessly for those likes to pile up, check to see which of my friends have reacted, and find myself feeling a bit diminished if no one does. It’s ridiculous.

Why am I so concerned whether near strangers like or don’t like some silly meme or photo or quote I’ve posted to the ether? How does their minimal attention affect my self-worth?

The past three years have been really tough for me largely because I’ve been stuck on the idea that my value comes from other people and their attitudes toward me. This wasn’t a conscious thing — I told everyone who would listen, myself included, that I was on a mission to “find myself,” that I was forging ahead on my own singular path toward my truest, best self.

Well, that was all a bunch of horse shit.

That is to say. I was not entirely genuine with myself about what I was doing or how I was doing it. I thought I was being honest and doing all those soul-searching things, but I was not. I was flailing in self-doubt and trying to find some kind of outside approbation that would trigger my inner acceptance.

And it took someone telling me to my face that they hate me to snap me out of it.

I have digested this person’s hatred and decided I like it. No, I need it. I need to know that someone patently disapproves of me, my actions, my attitude so that I can decide whether I approve of myself, my actions, my attitude.

I needed to feel that hatred and realize that it actually has nothing to do with me. Those feelings emanate from that person’s lived experience, so they’re perfectly valid — for that person. But they do not cancel, counter or even temper any of my own feelings that stem from my own lived experience.

That’s the beautiful part about this: I have finally realized that my feelings are entirely my own; no one else can feel them, change them or negate them. And the reciprocal is true also: I cannot feel, change or negate anyone else’s feelings.

I know that sounds super simple, but it is a revelation for me. No matter how that person feels about me, I can continue to feel love and affection for them, to cherish memories of them, to care what happens to them. Likewise, I can continue to feel love and affection for myself, even in the face of someone’s hatred.

And besides, most of the really awesome people throughout history who have made an impact have been hated by someone. Jesus Christ had a whole army of haters. The women who marched for suffrage were hated by multitudes. Martin Luther King Jr, Gloria Steinem, Pete Buttigieg, Melissa McCarthy, Amy Schumer, Roman Polanski, my cousin Janet — pretty much all the people I’ve ever admired were vehemently disliked by somebody.

This puts me in some stellar company.

So I am grateful that this person shared their strong negative feelings about me directly with me. Knowing how they feel has helped me let go of some guilt that lingered from our parting. And their feelings say more about who they are than who I am.

As Mary Oliver says, the only life I can save is my own.

Suspension

The temperature rose as more people filed into the small room. Just when I thought no other yogis could fit, people shuffled and scooched their mats closer together, making room for one more, two more, three more.

We hadn’t even started our yoga practice, and I was already coated in sweat. I like to come to this 5:30 a.m. Wednesday class specifically because there are typically only a handful of people in it. I love the peaceful feeling of flowing through asanas in enough open space to pretend I am alone.

Not today. At least 30 people filled the studio with their body heat and breath. I started to panic. My heart rate climbed as beads of sweat formed on my upper lip. I felt my breath shorten and catch in my throat.

“Run!” my mind screamed. “All the air is outside! Go outside and breathe!”

But just then, Nikki came to the front of the crowd and began our practice. “Let’s start in child’s pose today,” she said.

I have difficulty keeping my face planted on the mat in child’s pose, so I chose to remain in a seated meditation pose. I held my towel tightly against my eyes and forced myself to control my breathing.

In through the nose, hold, sigh it out. In through the nose, hold, sigh it out.

After about three long, deep breaths, my pulse slowed and the wave of panic in my gut calmed. I felt my shoulders soften. As we moved into tabletop position, I kept my eyes closed and focused only on my breath.

In, hold, out. In, hold, out.

Halfway through the first sunrise asana, eyes still closed, a memory surfaced: On my last trip to Europe, my ex-husband and I spent a night on top of a mountain in France. There were more sheep than people up there on that clear, warm night. Sitting in absolute darkness, I felt I could reach right out and touch the Milky Way. I felt small and insignificant in the most reassuring way. Space was vast above me. The earth spun effortlessly below me. I rested in between, suspended in sheer peace.

So long as I kept my eyes closed and focused on breathing through the positions, I forgot about all the other bodies in the room with me. I was alone within myself.

I have a lot of difficulty letting go of what others think of me. Too often I care more about how I look than how I feel, how others will react to something I do rather than what I want to do. This kind of thinking inevitably leaves me feeling frustrated, unfulfilled and angry. And often that anger gets misdirected toward the people I am closest with.

If I can just retain that weightless feeling of being alone on that mountainside, I might be able to forget about all the other bodies around me on the planet. If I can just close my eyes and inhale deeply, sigh out my worries and pretend I am alone, maybe I’ll hear that quiet inner voice a bit more clearly.

When I left the yoga studio to walk home, I marveled at how fresh and clear the morning air was. A few cars whooshed by on their way to work, but the streets were still mostly empty. I felt proud for staying and working through my anxiety, strong from moving through the poses, happy for once again having space and air around me.

Today my muscles are sore, and that feeling of peace alludes me once more. But I am going for a long walk to breathe in this longest day of the year, savor its warmth and length. Perhaps in its wealth of daylight, I’ll find more space within myself, more patience with myself and others, more mindfulness of this fleeting moment.

And maybe the next time I feel that crushing anxiety, that urge to run from looming panic, I’ll suspend my response and breathe. This simple strategy is still so difficult for me to embrace, even with that bit of success Wednesday. But as a good faith first step, I’m suspending my own judgement of myself, allowing myself to be imperfect and vulnerable, accepting my faults with love. And sighing out all my expectations.

Fifty Sunrises

This morning I awoke 50 years old.

I saw diamonds in the snow, and a robin alit on my balcony.

A wave of gratitude washed over me before I could lament my age, and the beauty of another ordinary day quelled the fear nipping at my ankles.

Clouds passed by. Weak winter sun fell on familiar objects I hold very dear, giving them a fresh glow. My deceased father smiled from a frame as if to say, “You got this, kid. Make me proud.”

I have sucked the marrow from each of my 50 years, leaving dry husks of memory in my wake. I have laughed and loved and left marks on my skin.

I have taken in the stories of countless strangers, making friends along the way. I have shared stories of love and loss and suffering and redemption. I have wrestled with words until their skinny black shapes united in some kind of meaningful pattern that speaks a bit of truth.

I have loved with every cell in my imperfect body. I have given myself with mindless passion and accepted the crumbs of another’s affection as the only sustenance available. I have turned my back on fruitless love and torn myself away from the suffocating needs of someone I could never satisfy.

I have walked a thousand miles in unlined boots over pitted roads and untrampled paths. My hem was awash in the mud of the wilderness; my hair was wild with the night.

Despite the frost of a late-winter morning, robins chirp in the bare branches of my dogwood tree. They are fat, perhaps pregnant with Spring’s first brood. They do not mind the rising and setting of that weak ball of fire. They are not distracted by the spinning of this globe. No, they simply sing and mate and fly.

Sing. Mate. Fly.

Oh, that my life were like that.

Then I thought: Perhaps it is. Perhaps 50 is not that unlike 40. Or 70. Or a thousand. What do I care of numbers anyway? Words are where it’s at. Words are what build worlds. One letter, one word can make such an enormous difference.

This morning I awoke.

That is the whole story.

Love Is Like a Kubrick Film

What can I say about love that hasn’t already been said? The word has as many different meanings as there are hidden messages in a Kubrick film.

I don’t think I have much special insight into the state or nature of true love, but I’ve known many kinds of love, which makes me very lucky indeed.

The really weird thing about love is how it is simultaneously the most commonly shared feeling in the world and the one feeling we can never manage to describe accurately.

But we keep on trying to, don’t we?

A red, red rose. An ocean. A raging inferno. Little heart attacks that aren’t enough to kill you but are just enough to make you walk funny. A heat wave. The sun. Quicksand.

I’ve been working on loving myself better for a while. And by that, I mean treating myself with the same compassion and care I treat other people I love: my mom, my best friend, my boyfriend.

It’s a little bit like being forced to play nice with the kid who used to be your best friend until she started smoking cigarettes and shoplifting. Now when you see each other at the park, your moms make you sit together. But it’s awkward and awful because you’re still hurting from losing her, losing the closeness you once had. You want to reach out, but you can’t.

I want to be kind to myself, forgive myself, accept myself for who I am. And sometimes I do, at least for a sweet, shining moment.

But fear and guilt are powerful motherfuckers. And mine run deep, to a childhood shrouded in the sins of my father.

I’ve been writing a story for work lately about how we live what we see, how we tend to follow the examples around us of how to be a person in the world from a very young age. How the environment we grow up and the role models we have can imprint upon us a sense of being valuable, merely by being alive.

It can also convince us on a cellular level that we are worthless. And that imprint is tough to undo.

I’m undoing mine. Slowly but surely, I’m loosening my grip on the nugget of shame I’ve been nurturing in my chest. It’s smooth and slippery, difficult to get a bead on. Like a cold sore, it surfaces when I’m under a lot of stress. But it’s getting smaller, and the outbreaks are further apart. That must mean progress.

And like a Kubrick film, my progress is murky, funny in a dark way and kind of meandering but with a lot of cool, artistic moments. And likely full of hidden messages I won’t understand for years.

On top of this personal progress, I’m in a fairly new and very intense relationship. With a man. It feels like the right person at the right time. It feels like an ocean, a raging inferno, little heart attacks that aren’t enough to kill me but are just enough to make me walk funny. Sometimes it feels like quicksand.

For Valentine’s Day, we’ll cook dinner together, drink wine, share some chocolate. But first, I’ll do something loving and tender for myself. I will slip that nugget of shame into a little velvet sack and tuck it into a cedarwood box I have from when I was little and shared a room with my sister. It’ll be safe and warm there, I can visit it anytime I want, and I won’t have to carry it around for a while.

What They Don't tell You

What they don’t tell you about the whole “try, try again” adage is that sometimes trying again feels like a surefire way to fail again. Sometimes your brain gets so attached to its history of failure that it sees failing as inevitable, maybe even as success.

What they don’t tell you about accepting failure and moving on is that the failure sometimes becomes part of your very fabric. Sometimes the fabric of failure starts to feel like whole cloth. Sometimes that shirt gets so comfortable that you can hardly tell it from your own skin.

What they don’t tell you about falling in love is that sometimes the falling is so terrifying that you’ll grab onto anything to break your fall. Sometimes falling feels like flying until you look down and see the ground rushing up toward you, covered in the broken pieces of last year’s fall.

What they don’t tell you about getting older is that sometimes you forget to act your age and your heart reminds you there’s still a little child inside who’s scared and lonely and bratty and hopeful. Sometimes when you think you’re figuring it all out, the math doesn’t quite work out, you have too much left over and you have to start again, but don’t forget to show your work.

What they don’t tell you about starting over is that sometimes you’re going to make that same mistake again even though it looks like someone new, even though you look like someone new. Sometimes you have to look past the reminders and the blinders and trust that something new is under there, suffocating in that hair shirt, waiting to surprise you.

What they don’t tell you about trust is that sometimes you have to trust someone else to hold your pain so that you can look at it from a little further away and recognize that it’s not really bigger than you, that it was just a trick of the light, that it’s really just a small stone rubbed soft by your worrying hands. Sometimes you can trust and be scared and touch that soft worried spot and slip off that hair shirt and let that stone weigh it down to the bottom of a cold lazy river and miss its scratchy weight and long to join it under the waves and wave goodbye to it and wait to turn away while your goosebumped skin shivers and wish it well and miss it terribly, all at the same time.

What they don’t tell you about life could just about fill this room. And sometimes this room is exactly where I need to be.

Creature Comfort

For the third time, the wind turned my umbrella wrong side out. Nearly frozen raindrops lashed at my hair while I pivoted into the blast to get the thing right way round again. Despite my earmuffs, gloves and warm boots, a chill was settling into my bones.

It was only 6:30 on New Year’s Eve, and already I was done being outdoors. Turns out, the dazzling promise of the Big City could not change who I am at heart: an introvert who loves her creature comforts.

My considerably younger companion concurred, and we made our way through the soggy streets to a bus that would carry us back to within blocks of warm, cozy shelter.

My only New Year’s Eve triumph was the fact that I managed to remain awake until I could hear the faint boom of fireworks at midnight while my youthful companion snoozed intermittently. I stepped out onto the icy balcony to catch a glimpse of rosy blooms above the dark silhouette of large buildings. A neighbor wished me a happy new year as he tended to his grill, the sounds of laughter and conversation wafting out to mix with savory smoke. The rain had stopped.

As I went back inside, the comparative silence rang out and my chilly toes dug into warm carpet. I lingered in the moment and took stock of my NYE track record.

Many a December 31 I spent in the toasty company of close friends around a blazing hearth, playing board games and laughing until my sides hurt. A handful passed quietly, with myself tucked into bed at a reasonable hour long before balls dropped or resolutions rang out. A few stand out as riotous fetes of dancing and cheering, but those are definitely rare.

Last year was like that, with Stacy at a friend’s house party. At midnight, a bunch of us threw on coats and stumbled to the backyard to watch hipsters shoot off bottle rockets while we howled at the moon and wielded magnums of champagne. Afterward, we danced en masse in the kitchen to thumping beats until our legs ached and our ears buzzed.

When I was little, my brother, Dan, and I used to plan elaborate NYE parties in our basement, hanging paper streamers and crafting a disco ball from tin foil – even going so far as to print little invitations to our parents and siblings on lined paper with crayon drawings of Father Time and Baby New Year. Our parents tolerated this, but I don’t think any other family members came downstairs to inspect our decorations. I’m not even sure I was allowed to stay up until midnight. But I do remember having to clean up all the festive detritus the next day, though thankfully this was before I knew what a hangover was.

I’m not terribly disappointed with how my New Year’s Eve worked out this year. I got to travel a little and reconnect with an old friend for a while. What I noticed was how that friendship has changed over the years. There has always been some distance between us, for one reason or another, but we have a real connection that makes it easy for me to feel at home after weeks, months or even years of separation.

Sometimes we connect in a bolt of lightning with feverish intensity. Sometimes we sit quietly together and let the comfortable silence rest upon our laps like a blanket. Often, we engage in spirited arguments about random subjects, like whether the world is more peaceful on the whole now than it was 50 or 100 years ago. But we always try something new – a restaurant, a dish, a play – and we always laugh, even if it’s in the wake of tears.

This is the year in which I will turn 50. I have no wisdom bombs to drop, nor do I have a lament of lost youth or opportunities missed. I don’t even have a bucket list of aspirations to check off as I defy the over-the-hill stereotype.

What I have is 50 examples of times I gave various degrees of effort with varying degrees of enjoyment and success, both in celebrating and cherishing this little life of mine. Sometimes the choices I make garner that wind-blown umbrella effect, with everything topsy-turvy and metaphoric cold rain slapping my head. Sometimes I find myself in a groove like last year’s party with Stacy, feeling a steady beat and moving in a pleasant rhythm.

Most often, my years consist of long stretches of nothing remarkable punctuated by those lightning bolts of feverish intensity. Just when I think I’ve rolled into a deep rut, a new face appears or a new challenge arises, and I find a fresh way of sidestepping boredom and surrendering to the terrifying unknown, hopefully emerging with something to show for it, be it a battle scar or a victory notch. And what’s the difference, anyway?

So here I am, on the brink of half a century, claiming it doesn’t bother me. Judge me if you must for succumbing to those creature comforts, but a soft couch, a warm blanket and the gentle glow of electronic devices were all the fireworks I needed this year. I expect periods of boredom and frustration this year, perhaps with moments of magic in between. I’ll take it all with gratitude and hope I can tell when to dance and when to go to bed early. 

The Ride

“You buckled up?” Officer Mike Zimcosky asks me as he switches on the lights and siren. We just got a call for an assist with a Signal 5: traffic emergency, in pursuit. “Yes,” I say as a small bolt of electricity zaps through my stomach. My right hand instinctively crosses over to verify that my seatbelt is, indeed, engaged. I press back into the seat as Zimcosky pulls a tight U-turn and floors it down Brown Street.

It is 12:39 on a Friday afternoon. I’ve been riding with Officer Zimcosky as a C.O. — a civilian observer — since 6:30 a.m. We’re in a dark blue Ford Explorer that has definitely seen better days. The transmission slips when Zimcosky accelerates, and every little bump in the road makes the shotgun that is secured vertically between the front seats jostle and squeak.

Zimcosky has been back on patrol for about six months now. He left the plain-clothes narcotics division after 23 years to return to a uniform and a regular day shift. “I loved it,” he says. “But there was a lot of overtime. You get calls at all hours. Patrol is a whole different thing. You can leave the job to go home.”

As we speed down Brown Street, Zimcosky constantly covers the brake pedal. Cars leap-frog each other in front of us, make left turns in front of us, seem to be oblivious to us despite the lights and sirens blaring. At each intersection, he slows to a near-stop, carefully checking for cross traffic. Zimcosky tells me this is normal, that “they don’t even hear us.” I make a mental note to pay closer attention to emergency vehicles when I’m driving.

“One thing about day shift,” he says early on, “when it goes bad, it goes bad quick.” The first call of the day was a hanging, code 6: “That means he’s already dead.” We decline to check it out, though Zimcosky says he’s never seen a hanging in his years on the force.

Tall and fit, with just a hint of a gut, Zimcosky has the face of a boxer. The pronounced bump on the bridge of his nose looks like it’s been broken several times. His light eyes are keen but kind, sharp without appearing angry. He wears no jewelry, save a chunky silver watch with a complicated face.

The radio in the truck buzzes constantly with dispatcher calls and codes. 39 is a traffic stop. 10 is a fight. 604 is a canine unit. 43 is a mental illness call. Signal 2 is a meet-up with another officer. Zimcosky calls in a Signal 1 when we need to stop and use a restroom. He says the Sheetz at Main and Waterloo has the cleanest restrooms in the city. When we’re done, he calls in 23: all clear. His voice goes a decibel or two lower when he calls in.

I have difficulty tuning my ear to the dispatcher and deciphering the code-speak. I can’t count the number of times Zimcosky says, “You hear that? We can get there,” when I heard nothing but bursts of static and the groans of the chassis. I am geographically turned around all day, whereas Zimcosky seems to know the labyrinthine street grid around Arlington Street like the knuckles of his scarred hand.

Each time I jump out of the truck to follow Zimcosky on a call, walking right up to who knows what, I fear the worst.

“You get numb to it,” Zimcosky says when I divulge my apprehension. Then he tells me a chilling story. In 1998, when he had been on the narcotics division for six or seven years, a package addressed to him was delivered to the downtown police station. It contained two pipe bombs. Zimcosky was in Columbus at the time, and nobody was hurt, but the experience struck a nerve. “It made me rethink my career choice,” he says. “But it’s what I’ve always wanted to do. I can’t just hang it up.”

Zimcosky’s father served two terms as the police chief of Munroe Falls, from 1967-1969 and from 1972-1975. That was a big factor in Zimcosky’s drive to pursue a career in law enforcement after his time in the Air Force. In his off hours, Zimcosky sometimes drives a limo for his friend’s chauffeuring company. He likes doing it for the extra cash and because, he says, “it’s got nothing to do with police work.” He also takes on extra shifts and does security in an office for extra income because he’s got two kids in college.  

In 2008, Zimcosky and his wife of 12 years divorced. She was also a police officer; they met in the academy. “We just grew apart,” he says. He often refers to himself as an open book and doesn’t balk at personal questions. But he admits that years of being lied to and seeing people at their worst has made it difficult for him to trust anyone, even in his personal life.

In his 25 years of service with the APD, Zimcosky has never once discharged his weapon in the line of duty. However, in the six months that he’s been back on patrol, he has seen 11 overdose deaths.

Zimcosky says the Ride-Along Program is good both for cops and the community. “If more people saw what we have to put up with, the 99.9 percent of great cops [would] not be punished for the one percent of bad,” he says.

Racial profiling is something Zimcosky says he does not see on the job. “If you’re a bad guy and you mess up, I don’t care what color you are,” he says. He uses the terms “bad guy” and “good guy” a lot. His criteria for a bad guy? “Someone who is crooked with us,” he says. “It’s a sixth sense, a gut feeling you get.”

When we catch up with the Signal 5 pursuit just off Brown Street, there’s already a paddy wagon and a code 40 (sergeant’s car) on site. We hang back, just there as back-up. The young driver has no license on him, but is carrying a big wad of fifty-dollar bills. We wait while another officer calls in to see if there are any outstanding warrants on him. The call comes back 26. “He’s going to county because he has a bunch of warrants,” Zimcosky says, searching the vehicle while the first officer on the scene cuffs the driver and escorts him to the paddy wagon. “We can go,” he says after a few minutes, laying the key on the roof of the car. “They’ve already started a 35.” That’s a call for a tow.

We get back in the truck. Zimcosky calls in 23: We’re all clear.