One Day of Freedom

It’s a full blue moon tonight.

A full flower moon.

It is the eve of your birthday and I can’t stop thinking about you.

I tried and then I just stopped trying.

It’s ok.

It’s been what, 3 months, of course I still think about you.

Even though I went on a few dates last week.

And I have to say, it felt really nice to be out in public on a date, of course I wanted to be on a date with you in public, but I know how that story goes.

He was nice enough.

But.

No chemistry.

Sad.

He thought we had gang busters chemistry.

I did not.

I know what chemistry is.

Boy howdy do I know.

I went on three dates to give him a chance and every single one just made me think more and more about you.

Damn it.

I love you monkey.

And I’m bummed that I won’t get to see you on your birthday tomorrow, to sing you happy birthday, to make your birthday cake.

I did love cooking for you.

Le sigh.

I’ll be ok.

I’m not crying.

Although I did rail at God one night, I think after the third date with the guy.

Because on paper he had a lot going on.

But when you kiss like a dead duck.

Ugh.

I wanted your kisses so damn bad.

I felt crazy.

I was so fucking angry.

I want a committed monogamous relationship and I want chemistry.

Is that so much to ask for?

I really think it’s possible.

Obviously I didn’t have the committed monogamous bit with you.

Double sigh.

And I haven’t had chemistry, EVER, like I had with you.

I want both.

Fact is.

I just want you.

I want you to fucking get your god damn act together and get a divorce and come for me.

FUCK.

And.

Done venting.

I don’t have it in me to be angry or sad.

I just want to wish you a happiest birthday where ever you are and hopefully you’ll get what you want and I pray all the time for God to take care of you.

And I knew it was going to rain tonight and the clouds would cover the full flower blue moon and I wouldn’t be able to see it, so last night, in my bunny slippers, I went outside and talked to the moon like I was talking to you.

I hope you got the message.

I’ll let myself be a little sad and a little maudlin.

I know that anniversaries are hard.

Fuck.

The two year anniversary of our first kiss had me crying myself to sleep.

Or your sobriety anniversary.

Walked around with a 7 year chip and a card in my wallet until my person was like, “hand it over.”

Just so you know.

I had planned on giving it to you but it was “suggested” heavily that I put it in my God box.

So that’s where it’s at, although, it’s yours if you ever want to make a move for it.

But there’s something about it being your birthday tomorrow and how it’s also wrapped up around my graduation party last year and getting my Master’s Degree and the party you threw me at the beach.

And I just finished my first year of my PhD program and I felt like we should have been celebrating.

I feel like we should be celebrating all the time.

Except that I’m not supposed to have contact with you.

I off and on block you on Facebook because I will find myself looking at your page.

Not that you ever post anything to it.

And I haven’t been a perfect princess.

I have looked at your LinkedIn profile, but then I unconnected us since that’s flirting with all sorts of danger.

God.

I wanted you to reach out to me tonight.

I wanted it so freaking bad.

Still do.

But.

I want it my way.

Not the way it was and you couldn’t give that to me.

I wish you could have.

If wishes were horses.

Beggars would ride.

I still debate getting one more tattoo with you in mind, a theme, I have three already dedicated to you.

But.

I can’t decide.

The little girl wishing for the moon card that I gave you.

Or two crows with a heart between the two beaks.

Or.

That one tiger dragon graffiti mural wall in Chinatown, the one I took a photo of you in front of.

Oh baby.

I’m not in tears.

And I want to recognize that.

I feel sad but it’s not torture and the no contact I’m sure has helped.

But man.

I still want to connect with you.

To have contact with you.

Those three stupid dates just made it so clear how much I love you.

Oh.

There.

Now the tears.

Ok.

No more of that.

Big breath and onto the point of the title of the blog.

One day of freedom.

Or relative freedom.

Tomorrow.

Because after tomorrow, it’s Monday and I have to start studying for my Law & Ethics exam and that takes about a month of study.

So.

Tomorrow is it.

I don’t have a lot of obligations, typical stuff, cooking, laundry, a lady bug, but nothing in the evening since my person is out of town and I don’t have any homework.

HOLY SHIT.

I don’t have to do homework tomorrow.

I got all my papers turned in and all my projects done.

I made it!

I really made it through my first year of course work in a PhD program.

I am sort of amazed.

So tomorrow, who knows what I’ll do with that free time.

But I will have it.

I hazard I will think of you and I’m sure I’ll send you a happy birthday wish.

Maybe tonight before I go to bed, I will look towards where the full moon is and wish you a happy birthday.

Happy.

Happy.

Happy.

Birthday baby.

I still miss you.

 

The Last Moments

Of my 45th year.

Tomorrow is my birthday.

I will be 46 years old.

It’s a surreal number.

Really.

All of them have been a touch on the surreal side ever since passing 40.

But now, well, as I edge closer to 50 than 40 and my body slowly starts to fall apart, I can say yeah, I’m getting old.

Well.

At least older.

And I’m not kidding about the body thing.

I mean.

I can still shake my booty on the dance floor, or in my house as it stands, I just did some dancing to a really lovely remix of “Take You for a Ride on a Big Jet Plane” and I really did break it out.

But.

The signs of getting older are there.

Despite wearing my hair up in gigantic poufs today and donning pink glitter eyeshadow.

I don’t have clients on Mondays after my nanny gig, so I like to play a little with the makeup and the hair.

But you know.

There’s some wrinkles underneath that glitter and there’s definitely some grey hair in those poufs.

And, you know.

I’m ok with it.

I like who I am.

I have worked really fucking hard to get here and my body has managed to carry me through.

So what if it looks like it’s been well-traveled, it has.

Every wrinkle and grey hair a testament to how far I have come.

I did have a moment though, last night, when I was getting ready for bed and I was like, enough with all the stuff.

My aesthetician did some work to remove a patch of collagen that has been bothering me for years recently and I have to touch it up every night and morning to make sure it goes all the way away and I have begun washing my face with actual cleansing foam instead of soap.

She was horrified when I told her I washed my face with soap.

I felt like I was getting scolded by my mom.

So now, I use some cleansing foam and yes, I always use sunblock, she made that a big ass deal years ago.

God.

I sound all sorts of bougie right now.

I hadn’t seen my aesthetician for eight or nine years, I used to go to her when I had really bad cystic acne.

That is one nice thing of getting older, that damn acne finally went away, but I had it well into my early thirties.

In the last few years I have noticed my skin getting a tiny bit dryer and last year I noticed that I had stopped getting black heads at all.

I used to still get those guys.

It seems that the oil in my skin is drying up.

So now I use moisturizer too.

I’m sure these are things most women much younger than me are doing, but you know, I’m a simple lady with the routines, so this adding in of stuff feels new.

And.

Now I’m wearing a night guard at night so I don’t crack any more fucking teeth and have to get any more crowns.

No thank you.

But it’s weird.

And I have to remember to put it in at night, adding another thing I need to do, on top of also taking my reflux meds.

I swallowed the three tiny pills and popped my mouth guard in and snorted.

It has begun.

I’m taking pills at night and wearing a night guard next thing you know I’ll be wearing Depends.

Ugh.

Anyway.

I’m a lucky bitch and I know it.

I don’t look my age, so now that Mother Nature is actually showing me that I’m not immune to this whole getting older thing, I just want to respect it and embrace it.

I don’t want to struggle against it.

I’m going to be 46 in the morning.

And if it’s anything like 45’s been, it’s going to be a pretty damn good year.

In my 45th year I graduated with a Masters in Integral Counseling Psychology.

I traveled to D.C., New York, Paris, and Marseilles.

I got hired at a private practice internship and started subletting an office space as a licenced Associate Marriage Family Therapist.

I danced.

I sang in my car a lot.

I took walks on the beach.

I loved really, really, really hard.

I cried a lot.

I wrote a lot of poetry.

I started my first semester of a PhD program.

I’m one week away from finishing the semester!  I just posted my final discussion post and turned in my final project for my Creative Inquiry Scholarship for the 21st Century class.

It’s been a damn good year.

I’m happy with who I am and where I’m going, even if I cannot see the final destination, I don’t really need to know that anyway.

Oh!

And I moved!

I went through a buyout and walked through a tremendous amount of fear.

I bought my first ever couch.

And it’s pink velvet, so there.

I’ve done a lot of therapy work and feel better about myself and supported in the work i do as a therapist as well.

I bought art from friends.

I pushed myself out of my school, nanny, internship shell and got back into the fellowship in San Francisco a bit more.

I ate a lot of apples.

I like apples.

I wrote a lot of Morning Pages.

I wrote a few blogs, not as many as I might have considering the issues I had there for a while.  But huzzah!  I have, with much help, gotten the two sites separated and I was happy to post my first blog on my therapy site tonight.

I’ve had a damn good year.

I’m a very lucky girl.

Or woman.

I suppose at 46 it’s time to really step into that women role.

Well.

Except when I wear my bunny slippers.

I don’t care how old I get, I’ll probably always wear bunny slippers.

heh.

So here’s to making it alive, sober, abstinent, happy, joyous, and motherfucking free, one more time around the sun.

Thanks 45, it’s been fun.

Bring on 46.

Ouch

My poor mouth hurts.

I am in a lot of pain, but I know, from last years experience, that it will get better.

I had to get another crown put in.

I cracked, yet again, another tooth.

This is tooth number two.

My dentist told me that I am grinding my teeth in my sleep.

Great.

I’m not stressed, really.

Bwahahahaha.

Sigh.

So, two weeks ago I got a temporary crown.  What had been an appointment for a teeth cleaning became a three-hour session in the chair.

And cost a fat $1475.

Then today, two weeks later, I got my new crown in and dropped another freaking $465 to get a mouth guard because my dental insurance doesn’t cover mouth guards.

But I tell you what.

When my dentist says I need a mouth guard or I run the risk of cracking more teeth and having to get more crowns, I’ll fucking pay it out-of-pocket.

Happy birthday!

Merry Christmas!

Yay.

Dental work.

Oh well.

At least I had the money in my account to just pay it out with cash and not freak out.

I wanted to sort of freak out, but I don’t have to.

I still have some student loan money left over to get through the rest of the semester and I will be alright.

I always am.

There was a time that dental work of this nature would have blown me out of the water, but I have a touch more experience with padding my bank account with my student loans.

I told a friend today what my student loans were at, around $104,000 and he blanched.  He’s also from country that doesn’t charge its citizens to go to school, so he’s not really accustomed to what it means to be an American with a great big heap of student loan debt.

I don’t care though.

My education is worth it and hey, I took out a big chunk to help with my move into my new place and I have no regrets about it.

I am interning at a non-profit and plan on working for them for the ten-year period that the federal government asks one to do if you want your student loans forgiven.

I can do that.

So it’s ok if I have them.

And yeah, they’ve helped with more than just paying tuition at my super expensive school.

I’m worth it and I still get to live in San Francisco.

So, there’s that.

I’m not on any pain killers for the tooth though and it feels big and hot and ouchy in my mouth.  If I remember correctly from last January it passed within a few days, the big pain by the next day, hopefully that will happen for me as well.

I expect that there will be some tenderness and hot cold sensitivity for a while, but it does pass too.

I will say I am not in the mood to do any homework and since my landlord is having a party I’m not really in the space to turn my attention and focus to homework.  I’m playing some pretty loud French music right now and trying to not think about my tooth.

I also did some apartment hunting on Craigslist.

I’m happy with my new place and not happy at the same time.

I had to move all of my things out of storage in the basement today, which I was not planning on having to do.  When I moved in the landlord offered me space in the basement to store stuff as my unit as no storage space, just a tiny closet that doesn’t fit all of my clothes, I got a big dresser and a rolling garment rack to deal with that.

But I don’t have anywhere to put my camping/Burning Man gear, nor the boxes of notebooks and text books I’m not currently using.  Fortunately my boss offered me space in her storage unit.  So tomorrow I get to get up way earlier than I was planning for on my one day off during the week to take my stuff across town to the Bayview to put in storage.

Two weeks ago I had asked my land lord that the basement be unlocked, I wanted to grab my Christmas ornaments a something to wear to the Burning Man ARTumnal event I went to a few weeks back.

It was at that time I was told that I was going to have to find another place to put my stuff as the landlord’s wife is pregnant and they are going to be renovating a room into a nursery and needing to store stuff in the basement.

FUCK.

I was floored.

I was also fucking pissed.  Where the hell was I going to put my stuff?

And.

I hate to be a bitch.

But fuck my life, I moved in here partially because I was assured it was a really quiet space that I was going to be able to study and not be disturbed and all was going to be chill.

A new-born living over my head is not a quiet living environment.

Now.

Don’t get me wrong, I love kids, I adore babies, for fuck’s sake, I’m a nanny.

AND.

I’m a nanny, I deal with crying baby at work all the time, I don’t want to come home to crying baby.

Ugh.

I might be making too much of it but that coupled with a few other things, like the unit is not nearly as sound proof as I was lead to believe and that the landlord and his wife have had two knock down screaming fights with each other where things were smashed and doors slammed since I’ve moved in that makes me think I will be looking for a new place to live when my lease is up.

I’m not going to break the lease, unless something extraordinary gets dropped in my lap, but I do think I may not be making this quite the permanent place I had thought.

And really, not that permanent either, I wasn’t planning on being here longer than my PhD program.

I sort of figured that I wanted to get settled in and cozy and then not have to think about moving until I was finished with my program and by that time I would be making good money with my private practice and could afford a one bedroom instead of a studio, or even, maybe start looking at what it would take to land a house.

I really do have the  dream of owning my own home one day in San Francisco, crazy as that may seem, I have my hopes and I have seen stranger things happen.

So.

Yeah.

A tooth ache and a loud party upstairs are not conducive to doing homework, but I thought, I can blog!

And there you have it.

I’m back to the blogging and my, it does feel fine and I just realized my tooth hasn’t hurt that much while I was writing.

Win/win.