The Last Goodbye

I have been thinking about this blog for days now.

You may have noticed that I have not written for a few days now either.

I was saying goodbye to the love of my life.

I never thought that I would write that sentence or that for the last year and three months I would be so involved with a man who I would have the opportunity to say all those things.

Love of my life.

Soul mate.

Partner.

The best thing in my life.

The best thing in my sobriety.

And yet.

There they were, over and over and over again, these declarations of the rightness or, the validity of, the beauty and power of love, lauded all over me.

I have had the greatest love of my life ever these past months.

Yet.

I had to leave him.

I can’t explain why, oh, I could, but I have no inclinations to air it all out, suffice to say what I wanted was not available.

I thought I was alright with that at first.

I did.

I thought this man is so damn amazing, so handsome, smart, kind, tender, sexy (fuck do not get me started) and funny, god damn is he funny, no one, and I mean no one, has ever made me laugh the way he did, ever, that I could deal with anything that the relationship handed me.

I kept it off my blog.

Oh.

You could catch glimpses of it here and there, but I never really talked about him.

And then I did.

Back in January.

I broke up with him.

It was like death.

It was so anguished and sorrowful and painful that I had friends reaching out to me to express concern.

I was vague, in the blogs, and it could have easily have sounded as though I had lost a loved one.

That is what it felt like, a death, I felt like death, I had never experienced such grief.

I remember relating to him later that I had not felt the depth of despair that the break up caused as when I had lost my best friend at 32 in a surprising and awful accidental death.

I felt more grief in my person when I lost the love of my life, that loss was harrowing.

But as my therapist once reflected to me, “you never really broke up.”

We couldn’t not be together.

We tried to be friends.

We tried to be compatriots.

We tried to not see each other.

We couldn’t.

We saw each other and then the inevitable swan dive back into the romance, the heat, the passion, the relentlessness of it, despite knowing that it wasn’t the best for me, I continued, I was in love.

I am in love.

I still am in love with him.

I still have this hope that something will shift, change, a magical thing will happen.

I know that is fantasy, but it is there.

In reality I also know that was has happened inside me, on the interior, in my heart, has not be sustainable.

I just couldn’t do it anymore.

I was hurting myself too badly.

It is hard to be a psychotherapist and try to hold onto something so painful, but try I did.

Of course.

I did fuck loads of work around the relationship.

Inventory after inventory, looking at myself, my patterns, how I love, the previous relationships and what they looked like for me.

I looked at patterns of attachment with my parents, I explored my psyche, I prayed, I meditated, I asked consistently for help and guidance from my support network.

No one ever really told me what to do, but so many could see that it was not a working relationship for me that, well, worked in my benefit.

God damn did I try though.

A part of me, larger than I perhaps wish to admit, still wants to try, to beat my heart a little more on the impossible wall that I was trying to scale to get to the place the relationship could flourish and grow.

I can’t though.

So I did the thing I never ever, fucking ever, thought I would do.

I asked for no contact.

Today was day one.

And there was no contact.

Although, truth, I felt him in my bones and body all day, an unremitting ache that has me in its grip, the burden of showing up for work and clients when all I wanted to do was crawl under the covers and cry myself back to sleep.

Sleep where I may perchance to dream of him.

I fucking asked for no contact.

On one hand I am appalled.

No texting.

No phone calls.

No emails.

No social media.

On the other hand, I am quiet and proud of myself.

It was horrendous, it was the hardest decision I felt such an ache for the loss of connection I cannot put it into words.

And I knew.

I knew, damn it.

That it was for the best.

That it is the “right” thing to do.

What ever the right thing to do is.

I am barely holding on here writing this.

I want to detail all the last words and gestures, the sweetness, the sadness, the anguished tears I shed, but I cannot sully it with my words and my sharing.

These last two nights I have been with him and I have no desire to share any more of it than that, the last two nights I have been with him.

And I miss him horribly.

I will be crying for a while.

There is so much loss here.

I have to give myself time to grieve.

So.

Forgive me for not sharing anything more.

I am devastated and that will have to suffice for now.

Devastated.

You Got Some ‘Splain’in

To do.

I have not told you guys something!

I’m off Tinder.

Yup.

It’s official.

I cancelled the app and deleted it off my phone.

Now comes the hard part.

The sit and wait part, the let it happen without looking for it part, the re-integration of lost things and places and experiences, the growing up part.

The.

Oh, dare I say it.

The adulting part.

I did some work at Burning Man and not all of it was fluffing, a lot of it was spiritual work, growth, therapeutic work, allowing myself to look at it like a dusty spa of spirituality and a sort of recovery conference in the desert.

I got my God on.

Heck, I even did a shaman journey.

Yeah, I know, shush.

I have been living in California for 14 years, please, it rubs off.

And I was ready for it.

Especially.

When I ran into my friend who was at the first camp I stayed with ten burns ago.  We hugged and reconnected and talked and I shared my experiences being in graduate school for therapy and psychology and that I want to pursue a doctorate now, I mean, really, it might be time for a new playa name, Dr. Carmen has a nice ring to it you know.

Anyway.

We chatted, he’s a therapist and he also does shaman work and I recalled a time when he had offered to take me on a spirit journey and how I sort of pooh poohed it.

Then.

I found myself wanting to ask when I saw him this past week at the burn.

And.

I found a great big lump of fear on my chest.

Oh.

How interesting.

When I feel that much resistance to something it is rather indicative to me that it’s time to do some work on something.

So.

I asked, and I admitted my fear and then we laughed and he said, of course and then asked me to ponder a question or to sit and be with what it was that I wanted to address.

What popped into my head?

Sober boyfriend.

Yeah, like that.

We met the next day in the heat of the afternoon, in the middle of a white out dust storm.

Things were said, deals were done, navigation of emotions, experiences, lots and lots of therapeutic theory.

He knows his stuff and I recognized a lot of the techniques he used and I wasn’t uncomfortable with the way it went, despite, yes, there being some fear there too, but mostly a curiosity to see what would arrive and an eagerness to address these baffling relationship issues that seem to crop up for me often when I am least expecting or most wanting to have a relationship.

It’s like a wall, glass, that I can feel, that I can see through, but can’t quite figure out how to get to the other side.

We talked and talked and got down to some root things, which when expressed from his perspective was obvious, so obvious, it made me feel a bit baffled then I realized how I am most often unable to see what others see so clearly, I have no perspective on my own life or abilities.

None.

Hearing all the things come out of my friends mouth, with a broader perspective of my history, trauma, and adult male patterning that I did when I was a little girl.

Well.

Fuck.

Of course I tend toward being single.

Hello safety.

I am either chasing after the unavailable boy or I am being the mother to said boy.

I don’t date adult men.

I don’t know how since I hadn’t seen healthy adult relationships growing up as a little girl.

I often tend toward two ways of being in relation to men I want to date.

I have been the mother–my longest lasting relationship was five years and I was definitely the care taker.

And then.

A long series of men, boys, that I chased, who were not often, or ever really interested in dating me romantically.

These paradigms made a lot of sense to me and I think I have been dancing around this knowledge for such a long time that when it was finally revealed it was less a great big aha moment, but more of a softening and relaxing into myself.

I had a lot of compassion for myself and a gentleness that I found so tender that I was in tears just from the relief of that.

So.

My friend made some suggestions.

Stop chasing.

Stop being the mother.

Write it out.

What does an adult man look like, what qualities do I want?

And lastly.

Be patient.

Don’t expect it overnight and stop looking for it.

It won’t be the impetuous passion of a sixteen year old in a romantic crush.

It will probably not be someone I’m crazy wild about at first glance, it will be softer, and I will be pursued and I will be seen and my power, who I am will be my calling card.

He will be strong.

He will not complete me.

I won’t have to mother, and I will not chase.

What a relief.

At first when I deleted Tinder I was pretty ok with it.

Then.

Yes.

I did re-install the app for a half day.

But.

I realized.

Nope.

It doesn’t serve, not after the experience in the dome, in the dust, in the heat, my heart opened, the little girl response to dating laid to rest in the resplendent gold dust light.

My friend said write about it, at least once a day, a paragraph, what my adult man looks like, what I want.

And.

Then.

Heh.

Text him when I start dating.

It won’t be long.

I’m ready.

I am happy, healthy, smart, employed, in graduate school, sober, loving, lovable, funny.

It’s on.

And I’m done with the dating apps and the chase.

I am here and available.

And I don’t need to chase.

I am fucking awesome.

I would date me in a heart beat.

I don’t need fireworks, although passion is lovely, I’m not going to try to make anything happen.

I don’t need to.

It already is.

 

 

Somewhere God is Laughing

Or at least chuckling loudly.

Ever been in a room where you realize that you have, slept with two of the men in the same room, and oh, yes, so has someone else there, and you’ve made out with another, and oh, it gets better, you’ve asked two other men, in the same fucking room, out on dates.

All I needed was my ex boyfriend to walk in the door.

I knew.

I mean knew.

I was in some fit spiritual place when I laughed to myself.

I did not laugh out loud, but I smiled pretty hard.

It was funny.

It is funny.

Sometimes the world is a very small place.

Now, don’t get me confused with some sort of crazy woman, all these interactions happened at very different times and points of my life and sexual/relationship time line.

One of the guys I made out with?

It was five years ago and I’m friends with him and his wife, so like, no biggie.

The other guy, I, yes, hooked up with at Burning Man.

Come on.

It’s Burning Man.

One was a lover from before I went to Paris.

The other two were in more recent history, one guy I asked out about a year ago, and I have to say, he’s given me the best turn down I have ever gotten.

“I’m so flattered, thank you, but no.”

Quiet, sweet, firm.

We’re friends and run in the same circles.

And he’s got a girlfriend now.

The other guy, I asked out as one of the guys on my list of ten.

I was like.

REALLY?

This has never happened to me before and of in all places, the Inner Sunset?

Ha!

Then I got home and the guy who asked me out to a dessert date, even though I said I don’t eat sugar, happy to have tea with you, freaked out that I don’t eat sugar, and cancelled our date.

Whatever.

It’s all so laughable at this point.

Ah, dating.

And you know, its San Francisco, so yeah, of course there’s overlap, it’s a small world out there.

Also, I do have a community and fellowship that I prefer to date within.

They are the type of men I want to be in a relationship with, so it doesn’t strike me as so strange that a confluence of them were all in the same space.

I’m not sure what God is trying to tell me, but it’s fucking funny.

Even I can see that.

I don’t feel a bit weird about it, that’s the nice thing, I can take it all with a grain of salt and say to myself, “well, self, who’s next?”

I mean.

I’m not going to stop dating or trying to date.

Where’s the fun in that?

I believe that being light-hearted about it all is helpful, being silly can’t hurt either, not taking it so seriously, as I am wont to do with many things in my life, being easy and going with the flow and seeing what happens next.

It’s all a part of the story and the journey and life, dating, is messy.

Funny.

But messy.

I mean I don’t know a single woman or man who hasn’t had a number or horrific/silly/ghastly/laughable dates or moments in dating before finding the person they were supposed to be with.

Or not finding that person.

Or finding out that the best person to date is themselves.

“Take yourself out on a date,” I told her yesterday after we had done some reading and writing in the afternoon.

I gave her some examples of what I have done over the years.

Small things like: lighting candles when I am having dinner, buying myself flowers, drinking my water, sparkling preferably, out of a glass instead of straight from the bottle, sitting outside on the patio when the weather is nice, listening to jazz music, walking on the beach, getting a fancy coffee at a cafe.

To slightly bigger things: riding the F-Market train from the beginning of the line in the Castro to the end of the line in Fisherman’s Wharf, going to the Farmer’s Market on a Saturday at the Ferry Building and eating lunch on a bench overlooking the Bay Bridge, taking the ferry to Sausalito, spa days at Kabuki Springs, going to a matinée, walking through the rain, trips to the MOMA or the Legion of Honor, going to House of Air and trampolining, walking through the butterfly exhibit at the Conservatory of Flowers, walking through China Town with my camera, or playing pinball at Free Gold Watch.

I’ve even taken myself on some pretty fancy pants dates: one year I had a three course pre-fix menu dinner on Valentines Day at Le Zinc a French Bistro in Noe Valley, or going to Paris.

Yes, I do count that as a pretty big date, not when I moved to Paris, but when I went there in 2007 by myself for 10 days.

That was as stupendous date.

I even got lucky with a French man in the Pere Lachaise cemetery.

Well, we made out, and had I let him we would have gone further, but too many tourists around.

It was something else to have a wild-eyed dark-haired Frenchman named Philip lean me up against a 200-year-old mausoleum and kiss me silly.

So.

I know how to date.

I do.

And I make a good date.

The world is not as big as I make it out to be and so to be in a room where I had kissed three of the men, slept with two of the men, and asked out two others, isn’t such a huge deal.

A goofy deal.

A silly deal.

A nothing to take seriously deal.

Something to write about on a foggy night while I wait to see what happens next and who I will go out with this weekend.

So far.

No takers.

But you know.

The week is young.

And already weird.

I can’t wait to see what happens tomorrow.