Uncomfortably Gray

By Monica Cravotta  |  Published: Monday, April 26, 2010

Gray Gray Gray.  Never liked it.  I’ve always had a need for black and white.

I tortured myself with a gray relationship in my twenties. A guy I was involved with who called me at least eight times a day, wanted to share every meal with me, bought me gifts regularly, took me on multiple trips all over the United States and had sex with me spent the first year we were together insisting that we were just friends. The following three years together he went back and forth between “Yes I love you” and “Maybe you’re just not it.”

During that first year I kept trying to convince him that based on what we were doing together we were actually in an intimate relationship….ridiculously determined to receive that clearly defined label that would acknowledge my significance.  And he would frequently say to me, “Life isn’t always black and white the way you want it to be.”  Indeed. I clearly suffered from a seriously low self esteem at the time to sign up  for a relationship like this as long as I did, but I forgive myself.

Going down memory lane a bit farther as I remember why my self-esteem was so crippled to have chosen this particular boyfriend — it was because I was coming off of the painful loss of my first love. We dated all through high school and college and were engaged briefly right after graduating. Eight months after we broke up, he married someone else.  I spent the next year of my life drinking heavily, crying or singing in my whiskey or wine and occasionally writing poetry.

When contemplating my frustration with a parenting subject in my life right now that I feel uncomfortably gray about, I was reminded of one of my old poems and found it in a box of journals tonight.  I wrote this during my drunk year in between the above two relationships when I wore black all the time. I thought it was artsy, sophisticated, edgy….who knows.  It was also my way of mourning what felt like the death of my first boyfriend — but worse.

To Be

Not Hamlet, but me.

An oak leaf maybe

Fallen from a tree.

Weathered, restless, lonely

And floating free.

She’s not the same color

As she was before

No. No ma’am.

Not since he walked out the door.

Just Red today.

More Scarlett really

O hair that she

wants to shave off.

Occassionally

Just to look gay.

Gay for a day.

Maybe? No.

Angst ridden.

Powerful, Strong, Liberating too.

And most times

Dear Scarlett

Happens to be Blue

Despite a kaleidascope of emotion

She prefers Black above all.

Solid, unwavering, genuine

BLACK.

No question of shade

In this young woman’s heart

She is

who she is

who she is.

That’s right.

This is only her start.

Now here I am fifteen years later.  I’ve gained wisdom on so many fronts; I roll with so much more than I ever did in my twenties or early thirties; and my angst has rolled over from one chapter of life’s central interest to another’s — just like a 401K plan or something.  It went from the Single, Will-I-ever-find-true-love-again account to the Married Professional Mom, Am-I-doing-the-right-things-for-my-children.

Angst du jour?  (more…)

Posted in Education, Mama Self Expression | 6 Comments

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