“Checking In”

Said the email header.

The body:

“You doing ok?”

Signed, his name.

My response:

“No.

I’m heartbroken. It’s been excruciating.

you?”

And then there was nothing.

Let me preface this with I had just gotten off the phone with a girlfriend who has been saving my life, like for the past week and a half.

I do not know what I would do without her.

And a lot of very sweet friends who have checked in on me, texted me, made me steak dinners after meetings, made me stay over and watch videos, even though I was secretly crying when they weren’t looking, or gone out dancing with me.

FYI.

Social media is a big pile of poo.

I look like I had a fabulous time out dancing tonight.

And I won’t lie, there were moments of joy, getting lost in the music, forgetting how heartbroken I am.

But there was also me checking my email account waiting for a response.

See.

I did something today because I could feel him, I felt him I did.

I was sad.

I have been so, so, so sad.

Doing all the things, trying so hard to not isolate, calling all the people, doing the work, having the feelings, grieving.

I’ve been told that grief is a testament to the love you have for someone when you have lost them.

I very much love my ex-boyfriend.

It is still so hard to write that, think that, say that.

It makes me want to stop writing and put my head down on my table and weep.

I have done that a lot this past week.

The grief catches me and smashes me down.

I think I have a pretty good front when I am out in the world, but the sadness floods me at times.

More times than I want it to, let me tell you.

Sometimes it causes me to dry sob and the tears don’t come, it’s like my face crumples and the breath catches in my throat and I had a dry heave sob, but no tears.

Then it catches me, most often at the end of the night when I have no defense left, then I find myself bent over weeping and putting my head on the table where I sit and write or work from—my kitchen table is also my work desk.

My cats circle anxiously around me and frequently jump into my lap.

They are very concerned.

Circling back to the email.

And the night, last week, Saturday, at 10:38p.m.’ish, when he finally called and broke up with me.

Recap.

After calling my people crying so hard I am not sure they understood what I was saying once I choked out, “he broke up with me,” I was told to block his number, block his email, delete his social media and block him on all social platforms.

I’m a good girl.

I did what I was told.

Though later I regretted it.

What if he reached out to me?

What if he had changed his mind?

I know how pathetic that sounds.

So I did what I was told and I blocked and deleted his phone number.

Fast forward to today.

I do not know why, but I felt him out there in the ether.

I called my girlfriend and cried that I felt bad about blocking him and what if he had reached out to me and wanted to connect or make up or I don’t know, at least talk to me.

She said, “he knows how to get a hold of you, he can email you.”

I lost it.

“I blocked him on email.”

She said, “you can always unblock him.”

I couldn’t on my phone because I had deleted his number.

I tried to, but I couldn’t figure out which blocked number was his—I block spam calls, and I had deleted his number so I wouldn’t try and call him.

So.

After some writing.

I decided to unblock him on Gmail.

And holy shit.

He emailed me.

Twenty minutes after I had unblocked him!

Checking in, are you doing ok?

Cue my response.

And.

Sigh.

When I didn’t hear back.

I emailed him a longer email.

I basically told him how hard it’s been, all the ways I have been in pain, how hurt and sad and awful it’s been and I told him I had blocked his number and deleted it.

I asked him to send me his number if he wanted to talk.

That was six hours ago.

I guess he doesn’t want to talk.

My friend suggested just giving him more time.

She also suggested I email her instead of him.

Why is it so easy to tell another person what to do, but not do it yourself?

I would have said the same thing.

I wanted to email him again.

Beg.

Prostrate myself.

I still do.

I still want to be with him.

I am a fool.

I feel very stupid.

“You’re not stupid,” she said, “you love him.”

I do.

I still do.

Fuck.

Cue another fit of crying.

Not like you can tell from reading this.

I just had to stop and sob some more.

Fuck.

I have gone through a lot of Kleenex this past week.

So much.

I walked home from dancing tonight, I went to a day party today, and started dry heave sobbing in the rain.

Cue Mike Doughty’s “Sad girl walking in the rain” song.

Very sad girl walking in the rain.

I still have this fantasy he will be waiting for me in my house, sitting on my bed, when I get home from where ever I have been, he has my key still.

I can’t help either, I walk in, look at my bed, he’s not sitting there waiting for me and I just feel worse.

Maybe he threw the keys away.

I forgot to ask for my keys back when he broke up with me last week, I was in so much shock.

My best friend said, just go make another set.

But.

I don’t want to.

I want to see him sitting on my bed reading and waiting for me to come home.

I want to curl up in his arms.

I want to fall asleep on his chest again.

(more crying)

I keep remembering when I got back from Burning Man last year and we were making love, it felt spiritual and emotional and so passionate and full of love and reconnection that I can’t touch into the memory too long with out falling back apart, and he buried his face in my neck and said, “I miss you too much when you are gone.”

I resigned from Burning Man that moment.

I knew, I think I wrote about this already, but I knew when I left playa, right before the rains came, that it was my last one—thirteen burns—I wanted to be with him and travel together elsewhere.

There was also that really awful allergic reaction to the sun to account for, but it was really about wanting to be with him instead of the burn.

And though he broke up with me and for a moment I did contemplate it, I am not going back.

I’m going to Barcelona instead.

I got pretty busy this week trying super hard to move through the feelings.

I booked a trip with my sponsor to Paris in April and I booked another trip to Barcelona at the end of August, beginning of September.

I have always wanted to go and I had a lot of miles.

I had been saving my miles to book him with me on a trip.

He had taken me to Banff and Mexico City and Vegas and I wanted to repay the gift.

So many things I wanted to repay him.

Shame.

The shame of fucking up.

The shame of pushing him away when I was trying to communicate with him.

My therapist said, Thursday of this week when I finally got to meet with him, he’d been gone last week—I could have used it last week so bad—“shaming yourself is not helping.”

He also said, after hearing me tell the story, “it sounds like you were both trying to connect, I just hear two people trying really hard to connect.”

And that.

That.

That made it worse.

He was trying to connect with me and I with him and somehow we both kept missing the other person.

So much so that he decided that he didn’t have the time to do the work to be in the relationship with me.

I have to be aware of that.

He was very clear.

Although, when he said it, he sounded like he was in a tomb, there was no emotion, it sounded like he was dead or dissociating.

My therapist said I was in dissociation two weeks ago when I went snowboarding.

I have a small young part of me that was so desperate to stay connected with him that I agreed when I was tired and needed to rest, to go up again, on the lift. And I had another part of me that was like, no I do not want to get up on that lift and I dissociated right away and let the part of me that wanted desperately to stay attached to my boyfriend talk me up on the chair lift.

Which was my first time.

And I panicked and cried on the ski lift and fell off and hit my head on the chair and then I got up and tried to snowboard down, but I just kept falling and pretty much tumbled down the mountain and then I fell really bad and hit my head.

Hard.

So hard a woman who saw me fall as she was skiing past me, stopped, un did her skis and walked back up to me, “oh my god, are you ok? Do you need a medic?”

I said no.

“Do you want me to carry your board down for you?”

I said, no.

I’ve go it.

I mean.

I sort of had it.

I unstrapped and wobbled down the mountain.

I was pretty discombobulated.

I had bonked so hard.

Thank god for the helmet I was wearing.

I realized with hindsight and my therapist, that I was also in shock later.

I was so cold that night, it took forever for me to warm up.

There’s more about the snowboarding that I won’t get into, although suffice to say I almost titled this blog “The $1100 break up” because that’s how much I spent on gear to go.

Gear I traded in to Sports Basement yesterday.

I couldn’t return it, since it was used, once, ugh, and I will only get a fraction of the money back, and not cash, but store credit, but I had to get it out of the house, I felt so sad every time I thought of it.

I couldn’t get rid of my climbing gear though.

I tried.

I cried instead and put it back in my closet.

I can’t also go to the climbing gym, I’m afraid I’ll walk in, see the climbing walls and just lose it.

I loved climbing with him, he was beautiful when he climbed.

He’s handsome, but when he was climbing it eclipsed his handsomeness and it was pure grace and beauty, and it awed me to watch him.

I can’t go to the climbing gym right now.

I just can’t.

Sigh.

I don’t know where I am going with this writing except to say.

I am still heartbroken.

Writing helps.

My god have I written a lot in my notebooks this past two weeks.

So much.

This blog helps.

I hope.

I think I have just been writing it to stop myself from sending out another beseeching email to him.

I don’t have a pithy ending today.

So.

I’m just going to stop.

I have a table that I need to put my head down on and cry some more on.

Instead of emailing him again.

I will cry and watch old episodes of Six Feet Under.

I will wash my face, brush my teeth, get into bed and fall asleep crying.

Just like I have every day this past week.

I Almost Called You Today

But I did not.

I chose to sit on my hands.

This is more difficult than one would think.

I shared with my therapist today about grief.

Grieving you.

Still fucking grieving you.

That breaking up with the man I barely dated for six weeks only reopened the grief of having to step out of our relationship and the way it was.

Still sad.

Still miss you.

Still love you.

But not contacting you.

I know better.

I keep telling on myself.

And the grief, well, yes, it is there, but it is softer, gentler, not as ravishing and destroying as it was months ago.

Months ago.

It has been seven months since I have seen you.

I look for you every where.

I look at men jogging in the park, I know you are running, I know you wanted to run a marathon, I know you are out there.

I can sense you once in a while and I wonder if you are near and my heart breaks and my skin crawls and I feel you like an itch that is forever inescapably unable to be scratched.

I cannot get you out of my skin.

The full moon this week did not help.

The crow on the porch did not help!

The crow.

It caused me to cry today and to freeze in wonder.

A big therapy session about you, a big wondering about what am I holding onto.  What keeps me from seeing what there is to be seen, loving and being loved and being in the light of day.

Why do I not or why am I not in the world?

I mean I did try.

I tried so hard with the man I dated and all I could do was compare and despair.

I was not happy.

Although for a moment or two it was sweet, sweet to be out in the world, sweet to be seen, nice to hold hands in public.

But it never went beyond sweet for me, nice, ok, company.

It never went deep.

It did not touch what I had with you and I could not stop comparing.

I also could not make myself love him.

He loved me.

I broke his heart.

That hurts to write.

I was, in the end, not the woman I wanted to be.

He accused me of being cruel.

And I won’t deny that, I am not one to tell another how they feel, he feels that, his experience.

However.

It would have been more cruel to continue dating someone who was in love with me when I was not with them.

More cruel by far.

There are things I did not have the chance to say and probably will never have the chance to say and I was messy and I don’t like being messy.

And there was pain.

Pain to recognize I had a part in and pain to see that despite wanting something to work, it wasn’t going to work.

Pain.

But I don’t have to suffer.

No.

And I could.

I could be suffering.

That crow though.

Sigh.

That crow.

Crows.

As you well know, remind me of you.

I have a metal heart box with a passel of cards with different versions of crows that I have bought to send you love notes.

I’m not allowed to though.

My motives are shit so I don’t write those cards anymore, I don’t send them to you anymore.

I wanted to call today so bad.

I wanted to text.

I wanted to see you, smell you, touch you, be with you.

The blue sky called me.

I felt you.

A pull, a fierceness to it, my eyes, pulled upward into the sky, my heart in my throat.

At work today, thinking about you after my therapy session, wondering what it serves to think about you, that faint knife of pain cutting into my heart when I think of not being able to be with you and how I still long for it, the being with you.

And I entertained the thought of texting you.

Just a text.

Just to find out.

Just to say I love you still and if things change with you, please let me know.

All the different iteration of I’m still in love with you and why won’t you be with me?

Sigh.

I made myself do homework instead of texting.

Like now, blogging when I wanted to call.

I did my homework, sitting at the island counter in the kitchen at work.

The whole house filled with light and sky.

My employer’s house has a gigantic fourteen foot, possibly higher now that I’m thinking about it, cathedral ceiling and the back wall is all glass, an impossibly large window facing out into the breathtaking down town of San Francisco, all blue skies today and clarity like sharp cut diamonds.  The weather today was so extraordinary, the door to the deck wide open, all the way.  The window is actually a panel of sliding glass doors, it was as if the whole back of the house was opened to the sky.  An enormous sky light exposed to the world.

The dishwasher beeped its’ ending and I pushed away from my homework, the moment I did, thoughts of you back in my head, back under my skin, back in my heart.

I walked to the dishwasher, I felt someone watching me.

I looked out, and there.

There.

So close I could see his bright inquisitive eye staring at me.

A crow.

Perched there on the balcony ledge watching me.

My breath caught in my throat and tears welled up and spilled down my cheeks.

Only I, my dear, will cry with longing looking at a crow.

Minutes of sustained eye contact.

My heart crashing in my chest.

Then.

He gently opened his wings and flew away.

Taking my heart with him.

I almost called you right then.

Almost.

I can still hear the conversation I was having with you in my head.

Telling you about the crow.

Telling you everything it meant.

Telling you I still talk to the moon.

Telling you that I know you found out that I was dating someone.

Telling you I am not any more.

Telling you all the things.

And breaking my heart once again.

So.

Now.

Here.

I opt out.

I am not calling you.

I am not texting you.

I am turning away from that tale.

You have something to share.

You have something to tell me.

 

You call me.

 

No Bandwidth

I mean.

Ok.

Maybe a tiny bit.

There is some.

But it is small and slight and I chose to write a blog instead of using it for homework.

Don’t worry.

Shh.

Anxiety be gone.

I will work the homework is a serious manner tomorrow.

I promise.

I had one client cancellation, there will be homework done then.

And after I finish with my last client at 2p.m., aside from lunch, I have no plans except to bury myself in the work.

My fucking god.

There is a lot of work.

And I have been doing some over the week, don’t get me wrong, I have attended to it.

JESUS FUCK.

I am so grateful I just caught that, I had an assignment due.

I actually don’t know if I would have caught that if I hadn’t been writing this.

I stopped and popped into my online classroom and saw correctly that I had something due.

Good grief.

I am so glad I caught that!

I already had done the work, I just hadn’t formatted it to turn in.

Whew.

It’s turned in and now I can go back to whining about how much work this all is and when the fuck and am I going to have the time to do all the reading.

All the reading.

So much reading.

So much.

I have seven, seven, new books that have arrived in the mail this week.

I’m going to say that again.

SEVEN.

Ugh.

I keep reminding myself that I just have to do what’s in front of me today.

It really becomes impossible if I look at that stack of books, like maybe if I just sleep at my desk and never leave it and never move I might, might, get through the stack by the end of the semester.

But.

I have a life.

A big life.

A full life.

I also have a private practice I am trying to fill since, well, that’s like my income.

Not fully.

But soon.

Today, yes, today.

Today was my last Friday as a nanny.

I am still nannying, but I am reducing my hours down to three days a week as opposed to the five days a week I’ve been working for like, forever.

Thirteen years, give or take a few other odd jobs here and there, I have been nannying for thirteen years.

There is an end in sight.

And maybe that’s why I needed to write tonight.

To mark this.

It’s a big step.

Next week I work two days less a week as a nanny.

And soon, by the end of the year, by February at the latest, I am hopeful that I will be done completely as a nanny and be fully self-supporting as a therapist.

It’s a big freaking deal.

I have been working so long and so hard to get here.

I remember when I turned ten years sober how I was putting the finishing touches on my application to my Master’s in Psychology program.

That was four and a half years ago.

It’s been a long road, but I have been on it, working and working and working and the working, well, it does seem to be paying off.

I reflected this morning while I was doing my morning pages (I still do that, I may not be blogging every day like I used to, but I am still committed to that practice, I can’t not write, I would die) that I have really come far since last year.

I moved into my new place September 15th of last year, I started my first year of a PhD program, I was hired in August to work for Grateful Heart as an Associate MFT to establish my practice.

I left my other internship where I was not paid to transition to Grateful Heart in October.

I had four clients.

Now.

I have eighteen.

That’s a pretty damn big deal.

To make it through a year of a PhD program, work full time and set up a private practice therapy business.

I don’t know that I held down the fort in all areas all that well.

Oh.

And yeah.

I broke up with my soul mate, the love of my life, the one.

The fucking one.

I have been grieving that a lot lately.

It’s been a lot of sadness and tough at times and I don’t write much about it here.

Aside from the odd poetry post that I happen to throw up.

Tonight’s full harvest moon is also not helping.

It’s been excruciating when I think about the language of love that we spoke to each other through the moon.

How many text messages and phone calls looking at the moon wishing for him?

So many.

Crying for the moon in the sky, crying for him.

Crying all the time.

I still cry.

It catches me off-guard sometimes.

I think this last time it’s been different, more final, more ending.

Hopeless and heartbroken.

And still thriving.

Still alive.

My therapist reflected that to me this week after I shared some things about the current issues I have around the ending of the relationship and how I am still affected by it.

She said, “you can be heartbroken and thrive too.”

Heartbroken.

And.

Thriving.

And overwhelmed by the work, but up to it and ready for it and grateful for the lessening of nanny hours so that I can work more on my dissertation and my course work.

So that I may cultivate more clients for my therapy practice so that I may, sooner, oh please, rather than later, stop nannying altogether.

I don’t know how it will look or when it will happen, but I sense it is out there just around the corner.

Just there.

Under the shadow of the moon.

Like my love for you, my love.

Always just there.

Lit by the moon.

 

All The Emilys

There’s actually quite a few of them in my life right now.

The sweet woman who texts me frequently throughout the week to see how I am doing after my break up.

Three weeks tomorrow.

Three weeks, feels like a lifetime of sorrow.

My hairdresser, also an Emily.

Who when I told her that I was thinking seriously of cutting off all the hair as an act of mourning said, “honey, why don’t you just come down to the salon and try on short hair wigs first, then you can decide if you still want to”.

Truth is I’m too busy to go to the salon to try on short hair wigs, although it sounds like hella fun and I could use some fun in my life.

I also suspect if I went near the salon I’d just tell her to fucking do it.

So it’s probably good that I’m too busy for the trip downtown to see her right now.

Let me see how I feel in a few more weeks and let the feeling pass.

I told myself the last time I washed it that I wasn’t going to cut it, it’s quite pretty at this length and I’m actually ok with the grey hairs that are starting to be sprinkled in the mix.

Then there’s the Emily I met last weekend at the Gabor Mate workshop I went to at CIIS (California Institute of Integral Studies).

I met her right at the end of the workshop on the second day.

She came up to me as I was gathering my things and said, “I just wanted to tell you, you are emanating power.  You have all weekend, your presence up front, you standing here right now.  You radiate power.”

I was not expecting to hear that!

And it was really nice.

I also felt what she was saying.

The workshop was deep and moving and there was a lot of trauma that came up in the things being discussed, but I for one felt good about how I was moving through it and that I have had deep, affective spiritual experiences that have helped me move through trauma.

I also feel that I lead by example and that is powerful.

But, to have it said to me, by a complete stranger felt like some sort of gift in the midst of my heartbreak and sorrow.

That even though I am sad and the grief is still so strong, I radiate power.

I introduced myself to her and she to me and I found out she works for a start-up tech company and that part of her job is to help tech workers going through burn out to work with their team of therapists.

I let her know I was a psychotherapist.

I wish I had given her my business card.

In fact, after I went to the bathroom I kept thinking I should go back and find her, but the truth is I didn’t like my business card.  My second iteration of it was not at all to my liking, I didn’t design it a women in my cohort did and it was freely done so no complaining about it, but well, the design was lacking panache and frankly came across as rather amateur.

I did not want to give this professional woman my crappy card.

I have since gone through a third design and I got my cards yesterday and they are perfect and I’m very happy.

Still.

It would have been nice to have given her my contact information.

The other Emily is my therapist.

I told her about the Emily at the workshop and how I actually didn’t want to tell her about it, it felt a little like bragging or boasting, but I also knew that wasn’t true and I have been embracing what it feels like to receive compliments, accept them and feel worthy of them.

It’s fucking important.

I mean,  I certainly express that to my clients, so I definitely need to express that to myself.

I told her and she confirmed it to me, that I was powerful and that I was showing up in amazing ways.

She also said what I’ve been going through was “flat-out brutal,” and that I was still going to work and holding space for my clients and showing up for school and doing so with grace.

Broken hearted and all.

I keep showing up.

But my God.

Sometimes it is so hard.

Then.

It’s not.

But I have had that experience just enough over this last few weeks to know that this is just me whistling in the dark.

I am still sad.

I still miss him like crazy.

I want to be in his arms, I want to feel his embrace, I want to feel at home again.

I want him to see me, I want to be pretty for him.

Shit.

There are dresses in my wardrobe I bought just for him and I want him to see me in them.

In fact, when I was getting dressed this morning I realized that so many of my dresses I have bought in the last year and a half have been for him.

I made myself buy a dress for me the other day.

And.

Yup.

I still want him to see me in it.

I loved dressing for him.

He had such style himself and it was super fun to be dating someone who like clothes like I do.

I love clothes.

I also love that I have a funky aesthetic.

Polished urban chic when I’m seeing clients.

Street funky and whimsical when I’m not.

There’s a little back and forth with it and I appreciate that.

I also bought myself some glitter lip gloss today.

He hated the glitter.

I said fuck it and fuck you, a little, and got some today.

I’m going to be a sparkle pony for a while, at least when I’m not seeing clients.

But my therapist really hit it on the head for me.

I am strong, I am powerful, I am moving through the pain.

It still sucks.

I feel angry, betrayed.

Oh man do I feel betrayed.

I feel like he gave up our love and I cannot bear how sad that makes me feel.

Shit.

Started crying.

Already had one crying session in my car tonight don’t need another right now.

My person just got back from three weeks in Japan.

Same three weeks I’ve been dealing with the break up.

So telling him tonight after we did the deal brought it all up super fresh and raw.

And though he’s not an Emily, he told me something valuable.

“Don’t forgive him yet,” he told me after I told him how I’ve been praying and working on forgiving my ex.

“You were betrayed, he did betray your love, you don’t have to forgive him yet, work on forgiving you and being gentle to you and you still get to be angry with him,” he finished and wiped tears from my face and gave me a big hug.

Fuck.

I am still so damn hurt.

It hurts so bad.

Ack.

And it’s exhausting.

I’m tired of being sad and tired.

I have a huge paper to write tomorrow and I need to rest.

But I’m grateful for this platform to work through the process and let out the emotions.

Better here then driving my car home.

I love you baby.

I hate what you chose.

And maybe I haven’t forgiven you yet, although I understand why you did, I don’t understand why you didn’t choose us or why you didn’t fight harder for us.

And I get it.

And I want to forgive you.

And I will.

Just.

Well.

Just not quite yet.

I’m going to be angry for a little while yet.

I have to let it out.

I have to.

Or it’s going to eat me alive.

You’ve Done Enough

Crying.

He said to me on the phone tonight as I was driving home from my internship.

I had called up my person to confirm our meeting for this Sunday and to discuss some things that I wanted to do and to basically tell on myself.

He made some suggestions and listened to me and gave me a different perspective than I had and then he said the aforementioned you’re done crying.

God damn that sounded good.

I would really like to be done crying.

I could use a fucking break from it.

And I don’t think I cried today, but I know I teared up a few times.

The crying could have happened but I didn’t quite go there.

I was grateful for the reprieve, truth be told.

It’s been exhausting going through this.

I had expressed how I thought my D.C. trip might be a vale of tears and I was told to have fun, to enjoy myself, to let myself have a good time, that I was allowed to.

That I don’t have to do any more fucking processing.

Or sharing.

I’m done.

I can keep to my work and keep to my recovery and do the things that I need to do for my own self care, but I don’t have to continually process this, I have been in grief for two and a half weeks.

I need a break.

And I know that grief does not have a timeline, that the expression of sorrow is not linear.

It will come.

It will go.

But.

I don’t have to court it and what I was thinking about doing may have been courting the grief.

So I won’t be doing those actions and I am forever grateful for the perspective of another and the wisdom of some one who has great clarity and can see me well for who I am and who advocates for me the best things.

I don’t always advocate the best things for myself.

But.

Man.

I am fucking trying.

I am doing the heavy lifting.

I swear.

I am doing things I never thought I could do, or even thought. that I would do a few months ago.

I don’t think I really entertained the thought of the actions that I so recently took, maybe a tiny peek at them, but most of the time no, I really did not see what happened coming.

I mean.

It certainly felt like a shock to me.

And the aftershocks have been pretty heavy.

It really shook my world and changed who I am.

I believe.

In a very deep, very meaningful way.

I am proud of myself for doing the opposite of what I wanted in the belief that by asking for what I want I would be better off.

Even if I didn’t get what I wanted.

And.

Hey.

Guess what?

I didn’t get what I wanted.

Nope, not at all.

But.

The results weren’t mine, I reckon the results of the actions I take really are never mine, they’re for God, the actions are what are important.

I took very contrary actions for myself.

I did something that I am still a little in awe of.

It was so hard.

It was scary.

It was unfathomable sadness.

And I still did it.

I also don’t know what the final outcome of it all will be.

I don’t have to know.

I just know I did for myself something different and new in hopes of lessening the pain that I was in spiritually, emotionally, hell, even physically.

I won’t say that I was going against my principles, or better nature, but I was doing something very outside my comfort zone and I think I was a bit like the proverbial boy whistling in the dark, nothing’s the matter, all’s good, I’m grand.

But I wasn’t and when it all came crashing down on me I realized how much I wasn’t good with my situation despite how much I didn’t want to change, I had to change.

Nothing changes unless something changes.

I made some change.

Good grief, did I ever.

Oh, all the things I get to keep working on.

So fucking many things.

But for now, I can say, let me rest for a moment.

Let me take a break from the crying, let me surrender that pain up and let it go, I don’t need to suffer, I don’t need to wallow, I can acknowledge that yes, I am still sad and fucking heartbroken, but I don’t have to dig around in it and dredge up more grief.

I can accept that I have done the work and I can rest for a moment.

Yes, there is no actual resting on my laurels, so to speak, but there is an acknowledgement of work done and that perhaps it is alright for me to call a time out from the emotional upheaval of the past few weeks and seek a little serenity for myself in all of it.

I feel that’s fair.

And should I need to cry again, that’s fine too.

It’s just ok for me to not do it today and acknowledge that the heavy lifting is done.

As my dear friend in Paris mentioned to me, “the worst is done.”

Sigh.

Yes.

The worst is done.

That makes me sad to write, in a resigned melancholic way, but also aware that the hardest thing I had to do has been done.

I grow from here.

I change.

I allow myself to heal.

I am gentle and kind and loving to myself and to others and I get the fuck out of my own way, to the best of my ability, one day at a time.

One moment at a time.

One breath at a time.

And everything will be alright.

I just know it.

Because.

Well.

It already is.

 

 

All The Things

I want to do with you.

There’s so many.

The list, my dear, may become quite big.

But I can’t stop thinking about them.

The things I want to do with you.

An unexpected one that came up tonight.

I want to have a cat with you.

OH my God.

A sweet little kitten, I haven’t thought about having a cat in a while.

I miss having them.

There are cat people and there are not cat people.

And you are a cat person.

I knew this, some part of me knew this, but I didn’t know.

The thought of a baby kitten and you, oh holy mother of god, it makes me tremble.

Like what could possibly be better?

Being in bed with you and a tiny furry creature, I might weep with joy at the thought.

Which is so much better than the weeping I have been doing of late.

I am so, so, so tired of the crying.

It comes and goes now, on its own accord, of its own life, taking me when it wants to without my permission.

My employer was playing music today and some song came on that reminded me of you and I literally bent over double and started to cry.

It’s as close to crying in front of my boss as I have gotten.

It’s been a week of this, I have cried plenty at work, oh my god, so much, but usually when no one is around, when I have had private times, when the baby has fallen asleep on me and I’m in a room by myself whilst the rest of the world goes careening on.

The world does not stop despite my heart-broken heart.

I seem to have stopped sometimes, most times, a glazing around me, a soft focus phased out, fuzzed out, sensory turn down where I am muddled and disoriented.

Driving in the rain tonight, coming home, listening to Debussy and thinking of you and the streets slick shined with rain and light reflections, the traffic, and the black inky night, here and there moments of coming to almost, as though I had just driven the last mile without really seeing anything.

It’s probably not a good thing to disassociate while driving.

Some music I can’t listen to right now.

And while the classical can make me feel tremendously sad, oh man, there are some things I can’t listen to at all, just avoiding certain songs and playlists and when I do stumble into them getting out as fast as I can.

But I did not start this blog to be sad.

No.

I wanted to list all the things I want to do with you.

All the things I think about, what would this be like, how would it feel?

And I know.

That’s fantasy.

But I think my poor heart just needs a reprieve, a momentary respite from the sad, so be gentle with me whilst I play out my fantasy.

Falling asleep in a hammock with you.

God.

I just want to be somewhere warm with you, wrapped up around you, holding you, being held by you.

You and the sun, I so want to be out in the world, in the light, basking with you, warm and brown and golden and laughing.

And sleeping.

Sleeping in warm sunny places, sleeping on a boat whiling its way through the Loire Valley, cushioned on your chest, my eyes closing to the rise and fall of your chest, the sky floating by, resting on you.

I feel so adrift right now, unmoored and up anchored.

I just wish to be settled against you again, skin to skin, heart to heart.

I want to go to the movies with you, hold hands in the dark, lean my head on your shoulder.

I want to travel with you.

God damn it.

What a pair we would make, poking fun at incongruously dressed travelers, sitting next to you on a plane, head on your shoulder.

I’ll happily take the middle seat so you can sit on the aisle.

I want to read books to you, leisurely, one chapter at a time, fairy tales, novels, poetry.

I have read you a lot of my poetry, but there is so much out there, so much yet to be read.

I have so much more to write.

Don’t you want to hear my poems?

I want to linger over breakfast and drink coffee with you and make bad jokes and be silly and go right back to bed.

Not to sleep, no, although that may come in time.

I want to write you love notes and stick them in your jacket pocket when you are not looking, so that when you are at work, you find them and smile and think of me.

I want to walk through Paris with you, sit in the cafes, hold your hand, make out at a corner table and not care who goes by, it’s Paris, people make out in cafes.

I want to go to farmer’s markets with you and carrying a basket on my arm.

I want to go clothes shopping with you.

I want to try on dresses for you and I want you to try on clothes too and then I want to be scolded by the sales lady for smuggling you into the dressing room.

I want a life with you that goes places and does things and opens me up to wonder and awe and beauty and surprise.

I suppose these things are not fair to ask or to write about.

I hesitated to even write all these things down, but the words in my head wouldn’t leave me be and though I am now once again in tears, just the moment of thinking about you holding me in a hammock might be just enough to get me through the tears that are once again streaking my face.

Oh my poor tired heart.

Go to bed.

May sleep come, just so I can dream once more of you.

When I Lose You

It will hurt.

What if you don’t have to?

What if?

You don’t have to lose me?

Don’t listen to those old stories lover mine.

They are just dusty faded book jackets for unrequited love.

Those stories don’t apply to us.

We are something more.

Something more than finite.

Infinite love.

Infinite good.

God smacked.

Graced.

Gorgeous, golden, you.

I have besmirched my heart for you.

And

I will stand naked before any jury.

Gallows.

Be damned.

Ours is not the history of failure.

Rising above the fog.

Riding along the waves which batter my heart.

And.

Grind down the rough edges.

All the shows and previews that your mind have written for you.

Well.

They are not true.

Not true in the sense of who we are.

Who I am.

I am so adorned in my love for you.

All this.

Passion.

Dirty blues songs ain’t got nothing on me.

Enhanced by your love.

I will wear it like the war paint of gods.

Driving further into the land of unknown.

Despite.

How well I know the darkness there, the fear that can come.

Careening out of those chasms.

I am stronger.

I will sing for you.

Cry for you.

Fight.

I am not going anywhere.

You cannot lose something that belongs to you.

I am a part of you.

As you have been imparted to me.

A blessing.

A gift.

Gracing me with all that is you.

All that is the glory of you.

It has been pressed into my skin.

All.

The.

Glorious.

Glad hearted.

Gorgeousness.

That.

Is.

You.

Don’t worry baby.

Baby mine.

I am not going anywhere.

Not now.

Not at.

Any.

Time.

Well, That Was No Fun

I knew, sort of, but not really, that I might be courting disaster by making the decision I made this morning.

And I made it anyway.

The good news is that I did not get hurt.

But man.

It was an uncomfortable ride home.

I decided to not take my scooter in to work.

I had planned on taking MUNI.

Then.

I don’t know what happened, but I got a wild hair up my ass and decided I was going to take my one speed.

Now.

I love my bicycle and its true I have done tons of wet weather riding in San Francisco.

However.

It’s been a minute since I’ve done any commuting on it and I was seriously regretting it as I sloshed through puddles and got soaked, seriously drowned rat soaked on my way home tonight.

The one upside is that I stripped down completely, threw all my clothes in the wash–prompting an early start to the weekend laundry and also giving the excuse to crawl into my pajamas and put on my very cozy bunny slippers.

I mean a wet, rainy ride home in the rain should be rewarded with fluffy bunny slippers.

Just sayin’.

I’m glad I did it, the bike ride in was actually really nice.

I had forgotten how much I love the smell of clover blooming in Kezar Triangle or the smell of the eucalyptus in the Pan Handle.

So good.

It was also a nice ride as I made it in before the rain began to fall.

I even popped over to Valencia Cyclery and got a detachable fender for the rainy ride home.

And it fell off.

I don’t even know where.

But it fell off and I got drenched.

Soaked.

I was wearing a rain jacket so my body was dry, just from the waist down got wet.

Anyhow.

I won’t be doing that again.

Sometimes memory can play tricks on me.

Like.

Oh, it’s not that bad, riding in the rain, at night, in San Francisco, where I swear people lose their minds when it rains and they drive.

I don’t understand it.

Especially since I learned how to drive in Wisconsin, meaning ice, snow, sleet, horrible driving conditions, I know it’s a little challenging when the weather changes, but it’s crazy out there.

Tomorrow I’ll take the MUNI train in, good old N-Judah line.

It’ll be too long, which is what prompted me to do the bicycle today too, it just takes such a long time to get to work on the train–it’s triple to quadruple the time it takes in comparison to my scooter and about twice as long as me riding in on my bike.

I have a thing for efficiency and using my time well.

I just didn’t want to waste time today.

And.

I needed the exercise, let me also put that out there.

I sort of fell off the beam with the yoga and I haven’t been in about two months.

Well.

Maybe not quite that long, but a month and a half?

Yeah.

That seems about right.

And I will get revved up and say to myself, tomorrow, tomorrow, I’ll go back to the studio and I just can’t get my ass to do it.

I have been praying for willingness, I have put that shit in my God box, I have told my people, both of whom were like, girl get yourself back into that.

I know.

I know.

I am being stubborn.

I’m holding a lot of excess emotions and it’s not fun.

I need to exercise, I’m an active person and when I transitioned from riding my bicycle 15 miles a day five days a week to riding my scooter almost every day, well, the yoga was a huge deal.

I also.

Fuck I don’t want to say it, but it’s on my mind.

I’ve gained a few pounds.

Not a lot.

I’d say three to five pounds.

So either I start working out again or I have to cut down on my food intake.

I don’t eat sugar or flour, I don’t eat processed foods, I don’t eat nut butters, I don’t eat white potatoes, very infrequently do I eat any kind of potato.

I eat hella healthy, but I like to have a snack at night and since I stopped riding my bike and doing the yoga I really don’t need it, but the habit, is well, a habit.

I’ve been telling myself for the last couple of weeks, the snack has to go and/or you have to go back to yoga.

Ugh.

I hate this stuff.

I feel like I am always working to maintain and sometimes I have to work harder to maintain than the majority of people I interact with.

Then I think.

Compare and despair.

And I think about how much work I have done, which shows me that I am capable of doing it now.

I just don’t want to.

Yet.

When I think of all the things I “don’t want to do” and that I do them anyway as they are good for me, I realize again that I don’t know what’s best for me.

I have the feeling I will get back on the mat and I will cry my eyes out.

It’s been leaking out.

I cried a bit today.

Earlier this morning.

When I met with my person tonight at Church Street Cafe.

Now.

I’m just grieving some more.

And it comes and goes and I get angry and then that too passes and I’m just sorrowful.

I am not wallowing in it, which is good, I just don’t want to feel it either.

Yoga breaks me down and gives me access to a lot of those emotions and also it allows me to let go of things that aren’t mine to carry too.

Sometimes I will carry other people’s stuff without even realizing it.

I’m feeling it in my body, there’s stuff there that’s not mine, doesn’t actually matter whose stuff it is, just that it’s not mine, and I need to work it out of my system.

Riding my bicycle today helped with that.

Also talking to my person.

“Girl, get back to yoga, you need to get your ya ya’s out, you have too much energy,” he concluded, looking at me from under the brim of his yellow slicker.

“I know,” I said and ducked my head down, damn you tears.

It was just the rain on my face, I swear.

And I do know.

And when I write it down here, things change, I change.

It’s a step in the direction I need to more towards.

I don’t know that I’ll get my ass in tomorrow.

But I’m going to shoot for Saturday.

My favorite teacher is there and though he has a challenging class, he also has a kind heart and I know he’ll just be happy to see me there again.

He always is.

So.

There.

Committed.

You read it here first.

Yoga.

9 a.m. Saturday.

It’s a date.

 

Home Free

Happy.

And.

Alone.

But.

Oh.

So not lonely.

No.

I am not at all.

I had a wonderful day, despite there being some unexpected hiccups and some tears at the start of the day.

Sometimes I wake up sad.

Makes sense.

I was sad when I went to bed last night.

The nice thing.

I noted this morning as I was writing and it overcame me again, a wave of it, that if I let it happen, not stifle it, not restrain it, just let it happen, it passes rather fast.

I had my cry.

I wrote my heart out.

Then I got on my day.

Important thing to get on in my day.

A scarf.

I texted my friend who had stashed my scarf in his carry on and then I totally forgot it.

“Oh shit, I’m going to need my scarf today,” I said, out loud, because yes, I do talk to myself.

I randomly shot out a text, figured I would have to make a special trip, only to receive, in short notice, a message that he was in the hood on the way to the store, five minutes.

Perfection.

And that might have been the only perfect thing in my day.

At least this morning.

Really.

It all was perfection.

Even down to this, quietly sitting in my in-law while the neighbors pop champagne and holler and the horns are blowing.

Hello 2016.

Nice to meet you.

Let’s be friends.

I am not ashamed, upset, or annoyed.

I am at perfect calm and ease.

Again.

The far cry from where I was when I got up.

I think part of my issue was, not that I admitted it right away, that I was planning on doing homework all weekend and I was feeling that I was isolating myself before it had even begun.

Turns out God had different plans for me.

After I had my cry, my oatmeal, my coffee, and lots of writing and getting right with God.

I had some perspective and some honest gratitude.

Then.

I got online and got annoyed.

The syllabi for my classes were incomplete, the readers were confusing me, what books do I need to buy, how much is that going to cost me, why isn’t there an easier way to do this?

I commiserated via text with one of my cohort and between the two of us, we made some good leeway.

Enough so that I was able to order all, I believe, although I am not entirely sure, my texts for the semester at a nice tidy sum of $198 on Amazon.

It would have been double, perhaps triple that had I ordered new texts, but I got all used, so that was helpful.

Then I got myself bundled up.

I mean bundled.

Tank top, long sleeve undershirt, light sweatshirt, heavy sweatshirt, scarf.

On top off all that, my motorcycle jacket.

The helmet, the riding gloves, and off into the cold breezy San Francisco afternoon, on down Lincoln, around the park, past the Pan Handle up and over the hills to downtown, then onto Mission Street, past the bums and crack heads, the junkies and whores, the party people, the homeless, the twisted, the crazy, then, onto the pretty and the shopping district, the Metreon, Yerba Buena, the high end hotels, the MOMA, and all the little haunts and spots I used to know of so very, very well, once upon a time in a land far, far away during my brief and almost fatal stay to Cokelandia.

On down to Copy Central between New Montgomery and 2nd street on Mission.

I used to buy Van Heusen work shirts just a few doors down from there.

I used to do a lot of things in that neighborhood.

Today, I just wanted my readers for my Multi-Cultural class and my second semester of Dubitzky and Psychoanalytic’s.

And guess what?

They weren’t ready.

I got the text seconds after I was standing in line from my friend, who had called, smart lady, to check on the status of the readers to find out that they weren’t done and wouldn’t be done until Monday.

Well fuck me.

I was pissed.

But.

It passed quick.

Really quick.

I also received another text almost directly on top of that inviting me over to a friends house for New Year’s Eve dinner.

Yes.

Lovely.

I’m in.

I am not going to be doing homework after all.

I got over the angry right quick and as I walked out of the shop I noticed I still had time on the meter so I popped into Walgreens and bought a bunch of pens and post-it notes.

Then I had a moment.

A perspective change.

What if the only reason, really, was that I was downtown to see how far I had come.

From being a scared, coke head, struggling waitress–yes it was fancy, but so too was my habit–trying to figure out how to use and make rent in San Francisco.

To being a successful graduate school student–I got back my first grade from last semester–A–riding her own scooter (paid in full in cash) who had just gotten back from an amazing week in Paris with a dear friend, who has an awesome in-law in the city, with rent paid in full and a week early (thank you very much I want to stay in my sweet little in-law), with a good paying job (one that I will have my raise go into affect on January 1st) with children I love.

What if that was the only reason?

It was enough.

It was an amazing little piece of insight.

I took it with me to see my person.

I also got a manicure, because, hello, I can.

We had a lovely lunch where the was much hot soup and hot tea and yes, some hot mess tears, but so much growth, love, and perspective for myself.

“You see the lows, you see the challenges, but you need to acknowledge the good stuff too,” he said peering at me to make sure I understood.

“I suggest you write some of that down tonight when you take stock on what your year has been like.”

Well, when it’s put like that.

Best break up ever, kindest, gentlest, tears on both sides, and hugs.  Yeah, I still had to do a lot of work and I cried my head off, but I also did an immense amount of writing and grew so much and threw myself into what was next.

I also applied to graduate school.

I got into graduate school.

I won a scholarship for $30,000 to go to said graduate school program.

I met and made amazing new friends.

I was flown to LA first class to visit the MOMA and ogle art for a weekend.

I went to Atlanta and ran into old friends and made a lot of new ones.

I went to Burning Man for my 9th year in a row.

I dyed my hair pink, a couple of times, and got awesome new glasses.

I bought a brand new scooter all in cash.

I wrote a lot of poetry–some of which I got paid for!  Making it my second time receiving $1,000 for a series of poems (the first was for a manuscript award I got in undergrad).

I went to Paris.

I mean.

Come on.

For a week and saw friends and places and things from before and also did things that I had not done before (the Jeu de Paume, the Roue de Paris), and bought lots of notebooks and got an awesome tattoo, and ate nice food, and walked everywhere, and practiced my French, and got lost and got found.

I got a raise at work, a great year end review, and an extension on my nanny contract for another six months.

And best and most important.

I stayed sober.

Nothing was more important or significant than that.

So.

When folks ask if I have a resolution.

If I have a wish.

If there is something in my “bucket list” that I need to do.

It’s just that.

Stay sober.

And what ever happens.

I will be ok.

And it will be lovely.

Like the dinner tonight with new friends and old, a sweet cat rubbing her face on my hand, the laughter until crying, the warmth and good food.

The simple things.

Happy.

Joyous.

Free.

I can’t think of a better start to 2016.

Happy New Year!