Red Cedar

About my guy.

Posted on May 14, 2008 by Megan

I’ve been thinking about writing this post for a few months – the one in which I extoll the virtues of my guy – but I always stop myself because I’m secretly afraid that by openly celebrating my relationship I am jinxing it. You know, like the evil sprites will hear my laughter and thus plot against my future children, or something. But despite hundreds of years of folklore telling me this – I figure it’s probably okay to do a little celebrating of someone on their birthday – and so I’m going to ignore the superstitions this morning and just get down to it.

It’s been almost eight months now since I met Brian for a Sunday afternoon drink at Wazubee’s on the Drive – one of many men who answered my late-summer Craigslist posting, but the only one who I ended up meeting in person. Really, I had put my entreaty up and then realized shortly afterwards that perhaps I didn’t have the energy to meet a bunch of new people right at that moment. But this guy, well, the fact he was a union person intrigued me – and the short note he wrote me gave the impression of someone kind and humourous. Both of us clear that we were *only* looking for a casual, friendly kind of thing. Seemed worth at least a drink to suss it out and so I went.

We met at four in the afternoon, three drinks and dinner later he was walking me home, leaving my house sometime around eleven that night and only because I had an early morning flight to Ottawa and still hadn’t packed. Passing the time with him was amusing, we had lots to talk about, he had a lovely smile – and I thought, “hm. let’s see where this goes,” and then promptly left the city for ten days.

My travel schedule and his family schedule meant that even if we had wanted to rush into things, we quite literally could not, and so the development of our relationship has been paced, building incrementally but steadily since the day we met. It wasn’t love at first sight, nor was it characterized by early obsession, but instead has been a gradual intertwining – becoming a solid rooted thing that I have discovered my faith in through some of our recent trials.

Brian is no doubt the man for me. And even as I write this I shake my head in wonder at just how easy our connection is and has been. Both of us writers, happy to bang out songs on the guitar and sing along, wanting a mix of urban and rural, working in similar fields, creating home and community, politically and academically analytical – and yet our personalities quite different. Mine the more intense to his relaxed, a necessary polarity for a longlasting relationship.

One of the first things I noticed and appreciated about Brian was his sense of self. He just appeared grounded in who he was – his upbringing of political education and travel giving him an emotional self-reliance that was attractive to me, calming in a way. I immediately felt that he was himself and that I could be myself without fear of judgement – which is often not the case when just getting to know someone. And that initial impression has not wavered, even as I have come to realize what his self-doubts and emotional sore spots are, I am always dealing with someone solid, loyal, committed – to himself and the people important in his life. He is a man who accepts his responsibilities, not grudgingly, but as a part of who he is.

We’ve had a lot of stress since we started seeing each other – with his ex mostly, but also with my own political stuff – and at the same time when I sit here and think about the overriding feeling Brian brings into my life it is a calm, a sense of well-being. To be in his arms, to meet him at my door with a kiss, to rise to his caress – just feels… well, so damn good. Like I have always belonged right there. Like I will always belong right there.

I have a hard time with the future and the concept that any relationship will have one. Multiple reasons for this abound not the least of which is my failed marriage, or the fact that my life has been knocked around pretty hard in the last few years. But I recently have found myself believing in a partnership with Brian, that we have what it takes to make something longlasting together, and reveling in the hope that possibility brings. It’s a crazy feeling after so much fear and relationship loss to open myself up again and find that I have met a mate in the process. I am so much in love, so tenderly connected, and while I know this feeling eventually morphs into something quite different – I am convinced that we have enough other solid stuff to sustain each other’s interest for a long time.

Anti-intelligence.

Posted on May 13, 2008 by Megan

3 Comments

Last night Brian and I had someone from my union over for dinner – mainly to discuss some issues related to organizing workers on campuses – but also just to be sociable since our temporary organizer is from out of town and hasn’t much to do outside of work. Definitely an interesting evening, turning on both issues within academia as well as broader problems with the union movement and the failure to stem off the undermining of collective bargaining in the western provinces. (Okay – well interesting if you are a labour geek. Which all three of us are.)

In any event, our organizer left around ten and I found myself in a discussion about intelligence and academia with Brian that we’ve had a couple of times before. I’ve got some issues, you see. Issues about my own lack of graduate degree and where that places me in the eyes of my partner who has a PhD and is regarded (by myself among others) as a very intelligent person. It’s not only about how Brian regards me either, but how I am viewed as part of a couple where one person has a much higher level of education than I do – which of course also falls along gender lines in a very typical way. And while this insecurity far precedes this relationship, it’s become more of an issue for me this time than with past romantic partnerships.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m pretty convinced of my own intelligence and apparently it’s one of my most attractive features to Brian – that we are of matched smarts, can talk long about a range of subjects, can entertain each other with witticisms on obscure labour leaders or by analyzing the anachronistic flaws in historic fiction. We both have wide-ranging intellects, a similarity I find particularly refreshing after a long string of dates who showed little interest in anything that wasn’t right inside their chosen field (music for the musician, film for the director, politics for the activist – and so on – each of these people giving me something to knit back into my more generalist knowledge base at least). It actually feels like a true intellectual match on top of everything else – by which I mean that we are of similar intellectual pursuit (rather than we are smarter than other people) – which is pretty crucial for both of us.

So what is my problem anyway?

If I’m honest it really does come down to that damn piece of paper that I don’t have. A graduate degree. And trust me, I know how ridiculous that seems – but it gets under my skin, this lack of academic fortitude on my part.

A little history may be in order here.

It probably comes as no surprise that I did extremely poorly in high school – taken up as I was with the punk scene, drug and alcohol use, and some mental health issues that I have since realized were environmental more than chemical. This left me without the grades or the inclination to attend university, despite the fact I grew up in university town and the expectation had always been there among my family that I would get at least some post-secondary. Basically I spent the next three years or so fucking around in bad jobs and hitchhiking ventures that exhausted me physcially and mentally by the age of 21. And so I applied for the community college in my neighbourhood, mostly because I hadn’t managed to kill myself off with my own excesses and the idea of working minimum wage jobs on my feet for the rest of my life had run out of appeal. You know, I had no idea what I was doing.

And did I ever fret over that decision for months. For you see, although I was an avid reader, politically aware, a good conversationalist, and thought about things – it had never really occurred to me that I might actually be smart. At least smart enough for post-secondary education. It seemed to me really that I was a bit of a loser (the self-esteem issues were pretty bad at that point in my life – so just ignore them – I’m much better now). I still remember my friend Mike giving me a pep talk over beers in Rumours that I was certainly ready and able for community college. “Come on!” he said, “Do you really think that you aren’t going to keep up with other people like me? You’re as intelligent if not more so than the general campus population. Trust me.”

I didn’t chicken out of course, and I attended two years of college, obtaining a diploma in political science before transferring to university to do an undergrad degree in communications. My moderate sucesses made Mike right – I was smart enough to do the work. And yet I still often felt that I was lacking some essential thing that gave other people the ability to understand Baudrillard where I did not. The insular lingo of academia left me feeling shut out a great deal of the time. And I could not understand the practical application of much of the analysis we were required to undertake in communication studies. (I mean really, semiotic theory is a pretty basic analysis couched in method – sign, signifier, signified – why we had to go around applying to everything we watched or saw is still beyond me.) I thought it was me that was lacking, that once again I was struggling with my own intellectual capacity, not a system designed to protect privilege or class.

Despite this, I was keenly interested in taking either a law degree or an MA after finishing my undergrad – feeling the desire to immerse myself further into the world of learning that I did enjoy. The depth with which I got to explore things was truly a pleasure, and I had two professors from my department even offer to supervise me as I got close to finishing my program. If not for reality, I would have had the support to pursue an MA in communications – that reality being a large student loan debt ($34,000), a marriage that was rapidly failing and would implode in my last few months of school, and the fact that I had a part-time job with some potential future in it. The prospect of being alone, turning down a good job, and adding to rather than subtracting from my debt load left me with more financial insecurity that my responsible self could bear. Not to mention the fact that I could hear the echo of my parents in my own head – “who needs more than one degree anyway?” And so I left school and turned to work and activism instead.

This decision has turned out very well for me of course – now nine years into a stable career, with a good foothold in my union, a comfortable salary and student loan debt long behind me. I feel that I have made a good life with that decision, and over the years since leaving school I have been increasingly empowered by the reach of my intellect as demonstrated through both work and leisure pursuits. I no longer wonder if I am as smart as other people – even those around me with higher degrees or more training. I have learned also where my intellectual strengths lie (being a generalist, I tend towards synthesis as opposed to specialization).

But still, at times I do find myself resenting the fact I never did get to pursue a second degree. I find myself angry at a system of elitist behaviour and language that keeps working class people out. I find myself derisive of the concerns that academics have about their rights, as they hold themselves above working people. I have little sympathy when they complain that the general public doesn’t support them, when in fact they keep that unwashed public as far away as possible from their campuses.

And I am particularly frustrated in a world the presumes more education equates to more intelligence. That despite my analysis, I feel inferior to my partner because he is referred to as Doctor (not his choice), and has more pieces of paper with which to line the wall. That I wonder how people from “his world” regard me because of my deficiency in education, that I wonder if he himself wishes I had more education – these are the reasons I have largely stayed away from dating academics. Just not interested in having all that stuff come out in me.

Of course it would turn out that the person I want to share my life with is of the academic world, represents academics as a union worker, and writes academic articles as a hobby. And as it turns out it’s not been so bad, because as much as Brian is of that world, he has a good analysis of it flaws and all. And he certainly doesn’t equate a degree with having smarts (having apparently known a number of degreed people who in real life were actually quite stupid). And besides all of that he understands why I have this funny issue that comes up between us once and awhile. I also know that if I ever did decide to pursue another degree he would be on my side to do it, but will never pressure me otherwise.

I know that this is my problem – not Brian’s – and it’s rooted in the same class and economics and gender issues that so many of our frustrations are. That is, academia is part of a system that is designed to keep most of us in our place. And that is something that even after all these years away from school I still find it difficult to make peace with.

Morning scene.

Posted on May 13, 2008 by Megan

Not a mother.

Posted on May 12, 2008 by Megan

2 Comments

Day after Mother’s Day and I’m reflecting on my childless state. Not a mother. Not planning to be. Not even remotely interested in the possibility at present, despite spending six days with my nephew Cai and his mother Anna. I am surprised by this. And a little bit frightened too.

Those of you who read here will know that this was a question of some conflict for me a couple of years ago. After a lifetime of surety about not having children, I entered a brief period (about four months) of wanting nothing but. From zero to ninety, the desire to carry, birth and raise a child surged in me at that time – uncontrollable, mystical, ego-shaking – and I was *certain* that I could not go on without getting pregnant. Circumstances at that time were not amenable to such a plan – my friends having just been arrested and my own psychological state somewhat precarious – I decided to wait until a better moment.

But then it passed like a flu will, slowly leaving the body one ache at a time until one day you wake up and can barely remember you were sick at all. I no longer wanted to have a child. I no longer could remember exactly why it had felt so important. As the rest of my life flowed back into my fingertips, and I came out of that difficult winter, I turned once again to the things in me that made the most sense – work, union, lovers, writing, friends – and away from what might or what could.

It’s been two years since that period of time and the feeling has not come back. I wonder then if there is something wrong with me? Or is it just that my identity has never included mother and so it’s difficult for me to fathom it except in the depths of the deepest hormonal craziness?

I was not a child who played with dolls. I couldn’t figure out what you were supposed to do with them, and playing house seemed like a secondary pleasure to building tree forts or reading books. I can not remember a time in my life where I though I would grow up to be a mom. Quite frankly, in the home I grew up in, being a mom looked like a pretty miserable thing that involved long spells of depression and disappointment. Our mom clearly loved us, but she wasn’t a happy woman, and my father resented having small children with a violence that left dishes smashed and holes in walls. (And now I’m remember that the few times I did play with dolls I made them fight with each other….).

As I grew older and moved out of the house, independence became my hallmark. To be able to do, drink, fuck, travel, write, work, talk, shoot, fight, resist, earn, educate, love – through my twenties having a child never entered my mind as something I might want to do. This is despite the fact that I have been pregnant three times in my life (19, 20, 30) – only one of those times did I even feel the slightest glint of desire to carry through with it. That is, three times I have very consciously chosen not to have a child offered to me, and finally had an IUD implanted five years ago so I would never have to make that decision again.

So what’s the problem with that right? Lots of people don’t have kids, I’ve got enough going on in my life to occupy me, my partner already has a child and doesn’t want more, and I’ve got lots of wonderful children who will continuously be a part of my life long into the future. On one level I’m not sure why I even consider this a conflict. But for that four-month period in 2006 – the moment of doubt about my choices up to that point – I would be without question on this subject (particularly as I just spent six days with Cai and didn’t feel one shred of baby-wanting despite the fact I love him dearly and am thrilled with every aspect of him).

I suppose that like everyone I am afraid of making the wrong decision though – and at 35 there isn’t much time left to really think it through (yes I know, into your early forties… etc.) – what if I choose not to do this thing and come to regret it at 50? What if it is the only thing that really keeps couples together after all? What if my mother is right and it really does expose the fact that I’m too selfish a person?

I think though that I’m torn because the desire to have a child is not in me, has been fleeting – and I worry that it does mark some deficiency. But the truth is when I envision my future from here, it is without a child, even as it saddens me to say it. I envision a life of being an adult, on my own terms, of travel of writing of dancing of making love and making art. And when I think of my future with Brian? It’s more of the same with some responsible real estate purchases along the way. I love him, you see, and that doesn’t make me want to bear his children – quite the opposite in fact – because I want to preserve *us* without snotty noses and dirty diapers getting in the way. His daughter, fortunately, is well past that state and on her own road to independence over the next few years.

It seems funny to me that I am finally in the “right place” to have children – stable income, stable life, amazing partner, etc. etc. – and I’m less interested than ever in the prospect of doing so. Which doesn’t mean I never will because I know that feelings on this can change dramatically and that four-month moment will likely come back in much stronger form around the age of 38 or 39. But in the meantime, a life without a child of my own actually seems pretty exciting to me. Selfish? Emotionally crippled? Or just doing things on my own terms?