I See Your Face

And the world stops, you said to me with awe in your voice.

You looked into my eyes and all the love and all the tears and all the challenges of the years fell away and I, well.

I wish I could just stay there with you, in that moment, in the doorway between the kitchen and my living room.

On the precipice of my soul.

You also said.

“We have to stop breaking up with each other.”

Or.

Did you say, “we need to stop breaking up.”

Or.

Was it, “I hate breaking up with you.”

I cannot remember.

They’re all true.

It’s awful and it’s right and it’s hard and we’ve done it a lot.

Too many times.

I don’t think I can do it again.

And you promised.

You did.

You promised you would come for me.

Like something out of a fairy tale.

And maybe then I can forget breaking up with you in my studio in the Outer Sunset.

Breaking up with you in my studio in the Outer Richmond.

You breaking up with me over brunch at the Beekman Hotel in New York.

Saying goodbye to you in D.C. crying at the gate, sobbing, falling into your arms and then walking away, like some movie scene that only we were watching.

Then damn it, doing it all over again, when you broke up with me in George Town the second time we went to D.C.

We keep smashing back together and breaking our hearts.

And somehow.

Somehow.

We both keep going on.

You on one side of town.

Me on the other.

Years have gone by.

Gray sprinkled now through my crown.

Laugh wrinkles grooved around your eyes.

And I still think you are the one.

Even if you are the one that has left me again, this afternoon, crying in my house.

Forlorn.

Bereft.

And with absolute knowing that it was the thing that needed to be done.

You hate seeing me sad.

And I got sad.

It happened.

I tried to tuck it away, in the closet, on a high shelf behind the duvet cover from Ikea and the white sheets with rosebud edges.

The tears, they leaked out.

I know you were crying too.

Not in front of me, not this time.

But, the moment you hit the street.

Walking back with a mask over your face, wet eyes to the sky, back to where ever you were parked.

Sitting in your car, putting the chocolate chip peanut butter cookies I made for you in your glove box.

(No one has ever baked for me, you said)

The smell that will haunt you for days to come.

I won’t reach out.

I learned my lesson.

My heart is broken and I’ll leave it there for awhile.

Long enough for me to throw myself back into my Phd program.

Long enough for me to bury myself in this last push of work.

Long enough to go back to this place, this place where I write and tell my story one moment at a time, without you.

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.

 

Not Sure Where to Begin

But apparently I’m ready for dating.

I wasn’t expecting that when I told my therapist last Tuesday about some recent experiences doing inventory work.

Man.

I did some self-searching, some fearless and deep, and thoughtful, insightful thinking and writing.

I saw my patterns.

Especially my patterns around dating.

My ex fell into my patterns and completely obliterated them too.

He was much more than just another guy.

He broke the pattern.

He didn’t break me.

Although he did absolutely break my heart.

I seem, however, to be healing and the writing helps.

And the longer days of sunshine help and being busy as fuck wrapping up this semester of school certainly keeps my brain occupied.

My brain would like to create some trouble.

Like, Friday night coming home after work and seeing therapy clients it starts telling me this story about this place I used to go to on Friday nights.

Our Lady of Safeway.

This church on Church Street and Market.

I spent many, many, many Friday nights in that church.

It is in fact where I met my ex.

Oh how he used to shine at me.

Still makes me quiver thinking about that.

Sometimes the thoughts slip in and I don’t try too hard to keep them at bay.

Sometimes they are just sweet and sad and nostalgic, I find myself thinking about him as I fall asleep, the first time he said he loved me, the first time he brought me flowers after he had said he loved me, his face over the bouquet of flowers, so open and vulnerable and full of love, his eyes.

Oof.

Yeah, I might be getting through all of this but I’m still not over you lover.

And that’s ok.

I have given up on trying to be over you.

And as I mentioned, apparently I might be ready to date.

It just sort of popped out in my therapy session last week, all about seeing the patterns and seeing where I need to look at myself and what I want.

I have some very specific needs and wants and really being open and honest about them to myself.

As I expressed all of it my therapist stopped me and said, “wait, are you saying you’re ready to date?!”

“Yes!” I said without a pause and holy shit, I felt it, I am ready to date.

Oh.

I suppose.

A little weirded out by it too.

I basically haven’t dated in two years and over these last two years there were more than a few moments of me thinking, this is it he’s the love of my life, my soulmate, my best friend, he’s going to be the one, I don’t have to think about dating again or finding love.

I had found it.

But.

Well.

Though the love didn’t leave me, he did.

And that was his choice and I won’t disparage him for it.

So now I have to get the fuck on with my life.

To that end.

I wrote up my sexual ideal and really dug into it, basically coming up with a three page essay on what I am looking for in a partner, mate, boyfriend.

I really want a monogamous, committed, romantic, sober, non-smoking relationship.

And yeah, three other pages of things.

I read them out loud in my parked car on the corner of Cesar Chavez and Noe Street this past Saturday night to my person after we had done the deal up in Potrero Hill.

He then suggested I go home and read it out loud in first person.

See what I had to grow towards.

And the really awesome thing, I already have the majority of qualities I’m looking for in a partner.

I’m quite happy about that.

The surprise that came up for me is that I want to cohabitate with a partner.

I haven’t lived with a boyfriend in, wait for it, twenty years.

I’m ready to live with someone again.

Yeah.

I also had hopes that the person I was going to be living with was my ex, but that was just fantasy, wasn’t it.

Everything was just fantasy, beautiful, romantic, lovely, fantasy.

Exquisite in the night, sweeping, and intoxicating, but in reality, the light of day, it fell short and left me with such a hurting heart all the time.

I want reality now.

I am ready for that.

And I’m not expecting a Knight on a white horse, I’ve never needed a man to rescue me, but I do want a partner to compliment me.

Someone to travel with!

My person really made a point of that, “I see you going to Paris and staying in that gorgeous apartment in the Marais with a boyfriend,” he told me after I had finished reading out my ideal.

Me too!

I booked it thinking about how romantic it was and yeah, I certainly have some big high hopes that I will be traveling with a partner this Christmas.

My birthday and Christmas in the City of Lights with my boyfriend.

I know it’s a little early to ask for a Christmas present, but well, when you know you know.

I can’t quite envision it, but I can feel it.

And I have done so much work.

God, I have worked through so much grief over this break up, I could use a break.

So.

Yeah.

Hey God, it’s me.

I’m ready to date again.

Really.

Dear Bunny

I miss you.

I have come so close to reaching out to you, I cannot even tell you how close I have come.

So.

Fucking.

Close.

So I made myself reach out to others.

That was hard.

When the one person I really wanted to connect with was you.

You to hold me.

You to help me through the pain.

Wow.

The pain.

Excruciating.

I haven’t experienced physical pain like this for sometime, if ever.

Not this long, not this bad.

It seems sometimes worse at night, when I’m tired and I know it’s time to sleep and I find myself lying in bed just after having said my prayers and hoping you’re being taken care of and praying for relief from the pain and from the sadness of not being connected to you and I go to bed crying.

Tears for the loss of you in my life.

Tears for the pain I am in physically.

Tears for not being able to ask the one person I’d like to most in the word to comfort me, to please, please, please, comfort me.

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?

I’m going to be super powerful, let me tell you.

But mostly I am just writing because I have this moment when I feel like I can.

I have wanted to blog the last few nights but all I have to see is that I’m in pain and it sucks and I’m probably going to have to call in sick tomorrow to work, at least my person is telling me I should and, well, if you saw what the shingles look like and you knew how much pain I was in, you’d want me to as well.

And I will.

Just not quite yet.

But soon.

They haven’t gotten much better.

Although I think I’m getting “used to” the pain.

Ugh.

Anyway.

I felt compelled to write and I have been thinking about you so much, so, so, so much.

I had a dream about you last night.

I didn’t actually have dreams about you until recently and I was wondering when I would and then this last week, dreams galore.

I dreamt you came back early from Hawaii sick and showed up at the Wednesday night spot we used to frequent.

I dreamt that you came back as Robin Williams, but I knew it was you, while I was at the Castro Theater watching the Princess Bride and you told me you’d be back for me in a year.

And this morning I dreamt you where in my kitchen, leaning against the sink watching me sleep.

I was so mad I woke up.

You looked so handsome in a navy suit, with the top button of your crisp white shirt unbuttoned, and the look in your eyes as you smiled at me.

I woke up because I was in pain.

The shingles are spread all over my right side hip, right side of my back and on the right side of my tummy.

I wake up a lot from the pain, I haven’t gotten solid sleep for the last few nights, although I’m certainly “resting” quite a bit, propped up on my bed, in my bunny slippers, with the soft pink velvet throw over my lap and the JellyCat pink bunny you gave me for Christmas two years ago tucked under my arm.

I spend a lot of time on that bed.

I wanted to fall back asleep and see what happened in the dream.

Would you come over and hold me?

Would you make it all better?

I recall with distinct detail how you told me if I ever needed you, you’d be there.

And I have felt that so much these last few days.

I need you.

And.

I can’t have you the way that I need you.

So I haven’t reached out.

Suffice to say that’s been painful too.

Loving and needing you and there’s just not enough to go around.

I miss you bunny.

I miss you so.

And like that awful, good, sad, stupid, country song of Willie Nelson’s, I don’t really think I will get over losing you, but I will get through.

It’s been five weeks now since we saw each other.

And it’s been terribly hard.

And I’m getting through.

With shingles now, thanks God, that was just un-fucking-expected.

But I am getting through.

A friend came over yesterday with his slow cooker and made me a pot of black-eyed peas and suggested that I needed to get laid and get over you.

But I don’t actually think that will work.

And frankly, with the shingles I don’t think such a great idea.

My heart would break more from it not being with you.

Maybe one day, just not today, or in the foreseeable future.

I guess why I’m writing all of this is that there was something about dreaming you up in my kitchen, seeing you there this morning as if you were really there, that has softened me and I felt forgiveness slide over me warm and soft and comforting.

Oh, I’m still sad.

But I don’t feel so angry anymore.

Maybe that’s the shingles, all that anger and hurt flashed out on my body, blistering and tender and raw and shear pain.

I told my girlfriend who came over today that it was like someone has taken the little torch they use in kitchens to make creme brulee to my skin.

The anger and hurt are there and I think that I’m completely ready to let it all go.

You did the best you could.

You love me and I know you still do.

I love you.

And if it was meant to be I can’t fuck it up.

I can’t.

If we are supposed to be together the Universe will conspire to make it happen.

And if not.

There’s not a damn thing I can do to manipulate it into happening.

Which, in the end, is really why I haven’t called you.

I didn’t want to use the physical pain I’m in to wrangle you back into my life.

If I’m to have you.

I want you fully.

All of you.

And if I can’t, no amount of manipulation will make it work.

So best to leave you alone.

If you’re supposed to come back to me, well, you will.

And in the mean time.

I really, really, really need to heal from these shingles.

I love you bunny.

I hope you’re doing ok wherever you are.

I hope you are finding your way to happiness.

I really do.

xoxo

Always, your baby girl.

When You Lose

When you lose the one you love
You think your world has ended
You think your world will be a waste of life
Without them in it
You feel there’s no way to go on
Life is just a sad, sad song
But love is bigger than us all
The end is not the end at all

It’s not somethin’ you get over
But it’s somethin’ you get through
It’s not ours to be taken
It’s just a thing we get to do
Life goes on and on
And when it’s gone
It lives in someone new
It’s not somethin’ you get over
But it’s somethin’ you get through

It’s not somethin’ you get over
But it’s somethin’ you get through
It’s not ours to be taken
It’s just a thing we get to do

Life goes on and on
And when it’s gone
It lives in someone new
It’s not somethin’ you get over
But it’s somethin’ you get through
It’s not somethin’ you get over
But it’s somethin’ you get through

 

Well.

Willie Nelson hit that right on the fucking head.

I was at work tonight and in some pain, although not as much pain as I am in now.

Fuck.

This is not emotional pain either, this is me being sick, this is me not going to work in the morning, this is me in excruciating pain going to the doctor tomorrow.

My person and I just had a talk and he suggested I might even try urgent care.

But that feels like too much and it’s already 9:30pm.

I’m just going to muddle through.

I think I have shingles.

Or I should say, my boss thinks I have shingles and after talking to the doctor’s assistant at One Medical I probably do.

It’s awful.

I’ve not been in this kind of pain in sometime.

I have one small nickel size patch on my right hip that is red and has tiny little blisters all over it, I saw it yesterday after noon when I was wondering why my back and hip hurt so much and I thought it was a spider bite.  I noticed the blisters late afternoon today and showed my boss.

That is not what hurts the most, the little blistery spot, although I’ve yelped in pain a couple of times when my clothes have hit it funny.

No.

What is awful is the muscle pain in the right lower side of my back, if I hadn’t Googled the shit out of shingles I’d have thought something was wrong with my kidneys.  Apparently the muscle ache is the worst and people go to the ER thinking kidneys.

And I started running a fever about a half hour ago.

Fuck.

So this is a short blog.

Just enough to say that hearing the Willie Nelson song at work, and I have never, ever heard it before (the dad was playing it as I got the family set up for dinner) and it hit me so damn hard.

I won’t get over you baby, but I’ll get through.

I’ve had my heart-broken and there’s no getting over you because you were the love of my life.

But.

I’ll get through.

And if I can get through losing you.

I can fucking get through anything.

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.

Heart Broken

Here I am trying to hit my once a week mark for my blog.

So sad.

I remember when it was every day and the streak was a long one.

I am happy to have a few spare minutes today though and I had an experience over the weekend that I thought I’d like to post about.

It does pertain to my recent heartbreak and break up and my love and my loss.

I am still grieving, I suppose I will for a little while yet.

I’m trying to just be nice to myself about it and when the sad comes let it.

I have stayed very busy through the weekend, although yes, I did actually sleep in on Sunday.

I woke up at my normal time, 6:30a.m. and then again at 7:30a.m. and I almost got up at 7:30a.m. but I was having a rather lovely dream of being with him and I literally thought I heard his voice in my room, so I buried myself in my pillows and said, I’ll just sleep another half hour.

Was I surprised when I woke up at 9!

I think I needed the sleep though and I definitely felt tender about my situation, but also some space and some gratitude for the experience seemed to be working on my heart and I was happy that was happening.

If tender.

Very tender.

Sometimes I completely forget.

Then I see something and it’s all there, the last 22 months, the first six months, the laugher, all the conversations, all the sweet nothings (which meant everything) whispered in my ear.

All the amazing sex.

Fuck the sex was good.

But if it was just all about the sex it wouldn’t hurt the way it has and does.

He and I both acknowledged that many times over the last year when we were really trying to figure things it.

It was that we were also best friends and that is a huge loss.

My person I talk to every day I haven’t spoken to in eight days.

Eight.

It feels like a lifetime.

I can’t imagine going another eight.

Yet.

I figure that is just what is going to happen.

Day after day will go by and one day I won’t miss him.

And one day I will be with the person who fully wants to be with me, can meet my needs and doesn’t have anything holding him back.

I don’t know when that day is, I’m not looking forward to it, I just know it will come.

The day I forget to miss him.

That is really not now.

I get broken up watching crows right now.

There was a joke he told me once, it was rather dark and a bit grim and funny as fuck and he said something about “like a crow laughing at a funeral,” and I just got it stuck in my head.

Thing is.

I like crows.

They’re smart, clever, live in social groups (appropriately called “murders”) and they mate for life.

I was fond of us being crows symbolically.

And of course two freaking crows nest in the neighbor’s house at work.

I see them all the time.

I tell them to send him my love and let him know I miss him.

Desperately.

I’ll see two crows playing and swooping through the air and sort of lose it.

I have a little pile of love cards and notes that I was planning on sending him in the mail, that’s been a part of our courtship, letter writing, and now they just sit desolate and sad on my desk.

There is no one else I can send them to.

I thought about it, but he said no contact by mail too when we ended it.

There really is no contact.

I haven’t blocked him on my phone (I suppose I’m wanting a miracle of change to happen) but social media and internet we’ve had no contact and haven’t been in each other’s social stuff for a while.

I was thinking about him a lot on Friday and missing him and also feeling a little lost thinking about a new client I have.

A couple.

And how I was going to see them the next day and some things I wanted to bring into the session and then I had the voice of doom pipe up in my head.

“How can you be a good couples therapist if you can’t even stay in a relationship?”

Cue some deep sighs and teary eyes, although I didn’t shed any tears.

Instead I directed my attention to the assignment I needed to do for my Creative Arts in Leadership class.

Which was about making a mask of my inner leader after having listened to a guided meditation.

I won’t get into all the details but to say I was instructed to have a question for my inner leader and I decided to go for that one, being a couples therapist who had failed at love.

It took me a while to get into the meditation, partially because it required me to be still and I know me, when I am still the feelings come and sure enough there they were, all marshaled up ready to let me know how much I missed him and how sad I was.

Sigh.

But I got through it.

To sum up the mediation we walked through a woods and came to a clearing and there was a structure there (for me a cottage in the middle of a big wildflower meadow, with a round door and a chimney jutting from the roof and lead paned windows) that we had to approach–our inner leader was there.

Mine opened the door before I could knock.

A beautiful older woman in her mid-sixties, with long silver-grey hair in braids wearing a simple sleeveless cotton shift, her arms and torso covered in blue woad tattoos.

I crossed the threshold and handed her my heart, I didn’t know until that moment I had been carrying it through the woods in my hands.

It was blackened and ravaged by crows.

I asked her how could I possibly be a good couples therapist if I had lost my love?

She didn’t say anything, simply took my heart and held it up to her face with a gentle smile and kissed it.

At once it turned into a beautiful shining apple.

She handed me back the apple and indicated that I should eat it.

I did and instead of going into my stomach the apple went into the empty space where my heart had been.

It took root at once and an apple tree immediately sprang forth loaded with shimmering apples in the golden sun.

I realized that the gift of the pain was a gift of experience I could give back to others.

It was sublime.

It was surprising and I came out of it with a grace and softness that I had not had going in.

I sat down at my desk listened to some Johan Sebastian Bach Cello Sonatas and made my mask.

Then, as per my assignment instructions, I wrote in my journal about the experience.

As I was wrapping it up, the voice of my inner leader spoke up, “who wants a couples therapist who’s never had their heart-broken?”

I scrawled that down in my journal and I knew it was true.

My life experiences are gifts that I get to give to my clients.

They may not accept them, that is not for me to decide, but I can offer them my experience and I believe it is valuable beyond words.

I’m still sad.

I miss my love so much.

But I also know the value of my experience.

Deeply.

I’ve never had my heart-broken before.

He was my first true heart-break.

Now I know.

Now I really know.

How bad it hurts.

Baby.

It hurts so bad.

 

 

One Week Later

There is a buttery cowslip of a moon in the sky floating over the beach.

I looked at it.

I thought of you.

“You will always have the moon,” you told me a week ago as we lay together our last time.

Maybe not our last time.

But for this time, this chapter, this experience, it was the last time.

Whatever comes next is new and unknown and I do not know when we will meet again.

But I will always have the moon.

So too.

Conversely.

Shall you.

I looked up at the curl of cream yellow in the darkened sky.

My heart ached in my chest.

I wished you well.

I wished you  love.

I wished for you to be kind to yourself.

It was not the first time today that I thought of you.

I thought of you so often.

How could I not?

It’s been a week.

And like I said.

Wednesdays, well, lucky for me, they will always be yours.

So many things are yours.

That damn car wash on Lincoln Ave at 19th.

The one we made out in like hormone fueled teenagers.

I don’t know that I have ever, ever, ever had such an intense make out session.

I drive past that damn car wash all the time.

And.

Thoughts of you.

Or the park on the hill where we made out sitting on a bench overlooking the city.

Yeah.

That one.

The one I drive past every morning on my way to work.

You are everywhere.

You are in the avocado tree in the back yard that overhangs the porch at work.

The one the two nesting crows like to fly in and out of.

They are young.

They have not been there long, but I noticed.

You and I have an affinity for some things dark.

Crows being one.

I noticed when the young pair started flying through the yard.

They have a nest in the tree to the left of the house.

Crows mate for life.

And I think of you.

You the one I want to be mated to for life.

You who are gone now.

Far away.

And yet.

Ever present in my body, the ache in my chest, the tears pulling at my eyes.

Tonight, driving home.

You again.

A surprising gasp of pain when I saw the sunlight reflecting on the ocean water.

There was something to the juxtaposition of telephone poles and wires crisscrossed over the sea in the background and the glitter of light bouncing back towards my eyes.

The beauty of it struck me and it was all you.

All about you.

All in my heart and my soul and I almost had to pull over and sob in my car.

But I drove on.

To what I knew might be the worst.

The early evening sun setting in the back door windows of my room.

The light slanting in across my bed.

The bed that you last lay in a week ago today.

I miss you.

Your smell.

Your laugh.

The way you look at me.

The text messages and phone calls and the poetry of my name in your mouth.

All the silly sweet endearing nicknames you had for me.

I sat quietly in a five-minute meditation tonight, in a room you and I have sat together in so many times, so many Wednesdays, for this past year and change.

Sat in the dark, with my eyes closed.

Thought of you, far away, in another time zone, most likely in bed.

I imagined curling up next to you and holding you and smelling you.

The other night.

I cried out.

My duvet cover smelled of you.

How?

How!?

I washed everything.

Nothing should smell like you.

And yet.

It did.

And I cried into my pillow and looked out between the bamboo slats in the window shade and thought about when the time will come that the moon will be full and shine through and wake me up.

Insistent that I think of you in the dead of night, pulled from dreams by the bright shine pouring into the window.

You were the bright shine pouring into my life.

I miss you bunny.

I miss you.

So.

Damn.

Much.

Got Through

I did it.

I got through the school weekend.

And.

Yes.

Yes, I fucking did.

I wrote a god damn paper too.

I just sent it in a little while ago.

I was so happy to kick it out-of-the-way.

Five pages, not a huge guy, but not really what I wanted to do after a full weekend of school, proceeded by clients at my internship, and working all last week at my nanny gig.

I really wanted to take a nap half way through the day.

It felt like I got wallop by the tired stick.

I stuck it out though.

A lot of folks were playing hooky today though, it was obviously a challenging weekend for the entire cohort.

But fuck.

I got it all done.

I am super happy I wrote the paper.

Now I am free.

At least for the next few hours.

Before I have to get myself ready for bed and a full week of supervision, therapy, work and clients.

But.

Not really a “full” week.”

I am flying out of SFO to Washington D.C. on Thursday night to spend the weekend with my best friend.

I am so ready for some vacation time.

It’s only for the weekend.

A quick in and out, but I know, without any doubts what so ever, that I will savor every last-minute.

Every moment.

I am so ready to go.

I just have to get through the next four days.

They are full days, twelve-hour days tomorrow and Tuesday, work and packing on Wednesday, therapy, supervision, clients, but, oh, the reward at the end of it all, well, the week will go quickly I sense.

Staying busy doesn’t hurt.

I vacillated today whether I was going to attempt the paper after I got out of school today, I was feeling pretty punchy after all the work I put in over the weekend, but the thought of having to do any homework while on my way to D.C. or in D.C. prompted me to get it done.

And done it is.

So too is my laundry and my food prep for the week.

And it’s not yet 8p.m.

But fuck, I feel like I have put in a very, very, full weekend.

I had some lovely times this weekend though, yes, yes I did.

And I am so grateful that I was able to get out of my school mode a few times.

It set the tone for next weekend and filled me with some excitement for my trip.

I haven’t done any travel in a little bit and I’m really happy I will be packing my roll on suitcase for a little adventure here real soon.

I don’t typically pack until either day of or night before.

Since I am going to go into work on Thursday for my full day of work I figure I will pack up on Wednesday and just throw my toilet bag together when I get back from work.

Debating the whole drive my car to the airport and do long-term parking or taking a Uber.

It was suggested to me to park there, but I get nervous about doing something outside my comfort zone.

I also think that my noggin is so full of thinking and learning and writing papers that I can’t quite figure the whole thing out right now.

My poor little brain is just looped.

I could use a snuggle and some sleep.

I wager I will go to bed early tonight.

I mean.

It’s not often that I am writing my blog at 7:30p.m. at night, but there it is, I got home from school, cancelled on going out to do other things today, threw a chicken in the oven to roast and started in on my paper.

I got the paper out-of-the-way, sent it off to my professor, and then had a nice hot chicken dinner with brown rice and garlic sautéed broccoli and romesco.

Simple.

I will save the fancy food for the weekend.

That’s part of the fun of traveling, staying in new places and going out to eat.

Shopping too.

Not that I was planning on doing a lot of that, but I do like to get a souvenir or two.

I usually buy a pair of earrings wherever I go.

A notebook.

Postcards.

I send myself a postcard.

I get a notebook to do my morning pages in.

I like to get a hat sometimes too or some clothes, but the focus of this trip is not shopping, but rather spending time with my dearest friend whom I don’t get to spend time with often in the quantity that we will have this weekend.

So grateful for the time.

And now that the school weekend is officially finished it feels so much more real.

I fly out on Thursday!

My friend is picking me up from Dulles taking me to the hotel and letting me get settled in, then off to a museum, The Phillips for some modern art, and a nice lunch out.

There will be much improvisation too, not scheduling too many things, just the time together, that’s what’s important.

The time together.

Oh.

So much nice to look forward to.

I am so ready for it.

It’s been a hard three weeks.

When I consider what the last weekend of classes was like and then juxtapose the weeks in between then and now I am amazed that I made it through.

It was hard.

My heart hurt so damn bad.

I am still tender.

I won’t lie.

You should have been listening to the music I had on driving to and from school

But I’m not focusing on that right now.

I am focused on the lovely things I will get to experience with my dear friend as well as giving myself  a big pat on the back for getting through the school stuff that had to be dealt with so that I may travel unencumbered by homework.

Happy Sunday.

Is it Thursday yet?

Contempt

Prior to investigation.

Sometimes I don’t even know I have contempt for a situation until it happens.

Then, when it does, I’m incredulous, like, wait, what, oh no, this is completely different from I thought and I am an asshole.

Yoga for example.

A lot of contempt.

But fuck.

It’s a good work out, my body feels better when I do it, and my mind clears out.

But for a very long time I looked at it as privileged white women spiritually bypassing to look hot in skimpy clothes and post pretty pictures of themselves on Instagram.

I sweat a lot when I do yoga, I also swear, and there is nothing pretty about it.

And.

Oh yes.

Sometimes I even cry.

Heart openers will get me, I don’t even know some of the poses are heart openers until after I’ve been doing them and then the instructor says something and I’m like, oh, that was it, that was a heart opener.

Sometimes I think my heart can’t get much more open, but God seems to have other plans and my heart gets stretched out some more and I’m left wallowing around in pain again.

Which it was pointed out to me this evening, is the touchstone of spiritual growth.

I actually told the person to fuck off.

I was super defensive and super tender and super vulnerable all at the same time and then I disclosed what has been happening, in general terms, and started crying.

Ugh.

I just didn’t want to be that person crying over something like this and the truth is.

I am that person crying over a heartbreak and a loss and I’m grieving and I’m so super fucking sad it breaks me sometimes and I just lose it.

And then.

I pull it back together, pony up, wipe my face, slap some lotion on myself, tears are drying out my skin like nobody’s business, and I get back on with the daily deal of living and doing the deal.

It’s not easy.

Sometimes I just want to crawl under the covers and weep until I pass out.

I haven’t really stopped crying for the last two and a half weeks.

Two weeks ago I had the conversation that would change it all.

Two.

I was thinking about that as I walked home alone and got cat called by some guy at the 7-ll on the corner who told me I was beautiful and had great hair.

Thanks.

I am having a good hair day, but I’m not really interested in telling you my name.

In fact, when he asked, I replied, “going home alone,” and kept walking.

I’m not into dudes that hang outside 7-11’s with open containers of booze.

I wasn’t when I was drinking, I’m certainly not the fuck now.

But yeah, my mind, preoccupied when I realized it was two weeks ago today that I had the beginnings of the conversation that would lead me to where I am now.

I hadn’t seen it coming, and it seems I should have.

Should, would, could, all the ways I can shit on myself.

I should have done this, I could have done, that, I would have, but.

Excuses and ways to blame myself and hurt myself and wallow in victimization.

I take responsibility for my actions and I feel their effects.

It has not been easy to do what I did and I feel like I’m dying half the time.

I am also doing something I have never done before so I have absolutely no idea how to do it.

I rely on the council of others, and pray a lot, and cry, and try to be nice to myself and try to not just smash my head on my table.

Like if I could have figured it out, made things work, I would have.

But.

I don’t know how to do that, I didn’t then, I don’t now.

I have a sense that I have to be honest, in a deeper way then I have ever been with myself.

I have an idea that the pain has not stopped, that it will in fact, continue for a little while yet.

It’s like settling in for a long winter, this season of grief.

When you let go of the thing you love most, the person you love most to choose to do something different, it’s going to hurt.

At least.

That’s been my experience.

It’s hurting.

It hurts.

It hurts so bad I can barely write this.

And yet.

I do.

I keep showing up to this damn stupid page as if it will make it better.

Kiss it and make it better.

Please.

I suspect that there is something here, though, a process, that helps mitigate the pain of the situation, a way through.

Just like she told me, “there is no way through but through.”

I just have to feel everything.

It’s a gift.

These feelings.

I may not always believe that when I am doubled over crying into my hands, but when the tears slow a little and I have a modicum of space, I know that I can appreciate the pain, that I can see the richness there, the beauty of it, the deep knowledge of how hard I love and was loved.

Am loved.

Do still love.

Still love.

I am still in love.

God.

That hurts.

That just screams at me.

I had to stop there for a moment, fresh tears to wipe from my face, a tightening in my chest, the feeling of not being able to breathe, the fear of losing the best thing that I have ever experienced and knowing that I made the decision to do so.

I did it.

I am responsible.

I needed something different than what was being offered.

And though I couldn’t come to it fast enough or in a tidy way, in a linear, logical, marked out intellectual way, I got there, I got to a place where it stopped working for me.

And when I did I saw what was not working I couldn’t deny it any longer.

Although, fuck I tried.

I had to change.

And.

I did.

I made the decision.

I will live with the repercussions for the rest of my life.

Good and bad.

They are mine.

I have no regrets.

I loved fucking hard and passionately and deeply.

I have nary a regret and I don’t think that I ever will.

I just have a lot of sorrow to keep working through.

And more tears to cry.

Always those.

Always those.

So.

Many

Tears.