One More Week

Of freedom.

From school.

Which is fucking hilarious as I carted around two gigantic text books today on the off chance of being somewhere I was going to read.

I learned to always carry my books with me, because inevitably the day will come when I don’t, (this past Saturday) when a client no shows and I have down time to read.

Or I’m at work and unexpectedly get time to read.

I probably won’t at all be able to do that at work tomorrow, I just don’t see it happening, but sometimes it does and as my time is super precious I use whatever I can get.

I have finished one of my text books for the fall semester and started in on another one and I am simultaneously reviewing a few articles for the class I will be guest lecturing on the 21st of September and reading a book for that class as well.

I did question myself a little about that today as I sat in a training in Berkeley for my agency, what am I doing teaching a class too this semester?!

But, I feel it’s good for me to do and I’m excited for the topic and the few people, outside of school, I have run it by, really like listening to me talk about it.

I find that encouraging, if someone who doesn’t have a background in psychology finds it fascinating, those who are pursuing the Master’s degree should like it too.

Or so I hope.

Regardless of whether they do or not,  I am learning as I prepare to teach.

Which is always how it goes.

Want to learn something on a deeper level?

Teach it.

I have had that experience over and over and over again.

And I’m grateful to get to go before an incoming Master’s cohort who are just beginning their journey and say here I am, in my second year of a PhD program, as a licensed Associate Marriage and Family Therapist with a burgeoning private practice.

I get to model what they can become and that’s really a sweet gift to give back.

I didn’t know how much work it was going to be and I’m pretty glad I didn’t, I did know I was right where I was supposed to be and I want to share all the things that I have gotten to learn over the past few years.

An hour and a half lecture will not encapsulate that, but it should be enough time to lecture on Reverie, which I find totally fascinating.

Reverie is something that happens in sessions where daydreams, wayward thoughts, fantasies, visions, intuitions, come to the therapist.

The first time it happened to me in a session, a dyad at school with a classmate, I got spooked.

I thought I had drifted off.

But there was something so potent about it, the image that came to mind, that I mentioned it to my professor who then told me that I had experienced  reverie and that it was clinically significant.

We discussed what I saw, how it was clinically relevant, and how to make an intervention around it.

It was fascinating.

It still is and there’s lots to talk about, and I won’t bore you with it at this time, since I don’t know that you’re really here to listen to me practice my lecture in Psychodynamics.

Heh.

Who knows why you’re here anyway.

I don’t.

I mean.

This blog has been dark for almost two years now, maybe actually it has been a little more than two years.

I don’t link it to social media.

I don’t post it anywhere.

This is just me noodling away at my keyboard.

There are perhaps of handful of folks that still follow me out there who know me, but most of the people that read this have no idea who I am.

Once in a while it gets read a whole bunch and I’ll be curious who has discovered it and why is it so fascinating.

Recently it was getting a ton of reads in, of all places, Hong Kong.

No idea why.

But for a few days, on and off for the last couple of months, literally hundreds of my blogs were being read in Hong Kong.

That was kind of cool to see.

I don’t know how many blogs I’m going to get out before the semester starts, I’ll be starting with some new clients this week and trying to get some homework done before the intensive.

One of my classes doesn’t have the syllabus up yet, which always makes me nervous, but the other two do and there is going to be some major work and a lot of reading to do this semester just for these two classes.

But.

I am not going to stop blogging.

Especially since I am going to actually try to incorporate my blog into a “Work In Progress” assignment for my class in Arts Based Research.

I know that I won’t be able to do a blog a day like I still managed to do with my Master’s degree.

That became really evident I am sure when my blogs took a total nose dive once I began my PhD and started building up my private practice.

The blog took such a hit.

But.

I have never stopped writing and I’m going to keep sending out these little missives to the Universe whenever I can.

It helps me to keep my writing chops and it helps me process all the things.

Like not speaking or being in contact with my ex and what that feels like.

Good and super hard all at the same time and scary and sad.

Or thinking about the time I was in Cuba, just recently and had an overwhelming spiritual experience at a Catholic church where Santoria is practiced.

Floods of tears, praying on my knees, and asking for forgiveness in front of a black Madonna.

Or when I was walking the cobblestone streets of Old Havana with my hair up, a long white dress on, a bright turquoise parasol protecting me from the sun and the feeling of awe in wonder at who I get to be in this life and where I get to go.

And.

Where I get to go home to.

San Francisco.

I am still here.

Hanging on at the edge of the city.

The ledge of the Western seaboard.

Two blocks from the Ocean.

The moon rise and the the dark breach of universe turning above me.

I am so fucking grateful to be alive.

It’s ok that I got my heart broke.

It’s ok that my rent’s ridiculous.

It’s ok that I’m still a nanny.

I get to do all these miraculous things.

It’s ok that I’m busy with my PhD and nervous to teach the class.

I get to do all these things.

Because.

I am graced.

Happy.

Joyous.

And so very.

Very.

Very.

Free.

I Have Forgotten

The sound of your laugh.

I cried on the way home from my meeting.

Listening to French House Music that is not supposed to make me sad.

“Boy turns to girl and says, I love you so.”

“Boy turns to girl and says, I love you so.”

“Boy turns to girl and says, I love you so.”

You could see how that did not actually work out so well for me.

A crow landed on the porch at work today.

It sat bobbing on the thin railing staring into the patio glass doors.

Looking at me.

I was bent over picking up toys from the floor.

Matchbox cars.

Legos.

A stray ribbon from a dolls tousled red hair.

The crow looked at me.

I told him to tell you to come for me.

I know.

Fairytale stuff.

But I did it anyway.

I have forgotten the sound of your laugh.

Do you know how destroyed that makes me feel?

I have been in pain.

I am in pain.

It is all just pain.

The sunset.

You.

The moonrise.

You.

The sea swell and waves rolling into the beach.

All you.

I wrote you a letter yesterday.

I forgot to write you poetry since we have gone our ways.

Separate and apart.

But not really parted.

I realized that I had not as it was so hard, so painful.

I have ghost images of words and fragments of feelings that tell me what the poems might have been about.

You may hazard a guess.

They were sad poems.

My imaginary epistles to you.

I can’t remember how you laugh.

I can see it, I can see your smile, but I can’t hear you.

All I hear is the sound of my own sobbing in the crook of my elbow.

Head bent over the table I am writing at.

I had not thought about losing your voice.

I have pictures of you.

I look once in a while.

Until I start to cry.

Then I stop.

The picture of us in front of the fire in D.C.

Still it haunts my computer.

Still.

Pops up whenever I connect my phone to my computer.

Your face.

Mine in silhouette.

Your arm around me.

Why did I have to lose your laugh today?

Why?

I have lost so much already.

This is not a poem.

This is not a cry for help.

This is just me sad and alone crying into my hands.

While fire races up my side and burns me from the inside out.

I lost your laugh today.

I will never be the same again.

Never.

Again.

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.

 

 

Fifteen Minute Blog

That’s about all I got tonight.

Fifteen minutes.

I almost decided to not write, but then I thought, when am I going to have the opportunity again?

I mean.

PhD full tilt boogie.

38 hours a week at my day job.

I’ve also clocked 13 hours at my internship so far this week and I have a client tomorrow as well as three on Saturday.

This is it.

Take the moment.

I could, sure, do some homework.

But.

Well.

I’m pretty on top of it right now.

I wrote a paper over the last two days at work as I was left pretty much alone during the afternoons at work with the baby (who’s really not a baby anymore, 26 months tomorrow) who has been taking these great big fat three-hour naps.

I can knock out a lot of work in three hours.

It’s been a huge gift.

When people ask me how I’m doing it, that’s really the key right now, homework while the baby naps.

Of course I do homework at other times, but the three hours really gives me a way into staying abreast of the work.

I have plenty to do the next couple of days as well with school work, new module’s opened in one of my classes, which means obligations to post discussions and respond to others.

I have done the readings so it shouldn’t be too bad and if the baby naps well tomorrow and the mom’s out of the house, I’ll get it done.

I’m staying busy.

Maybe, sort of, on purpose.

I will say I was a little surprised today to not be as upset and sad as I thought I would.

Then again, when I have slowed down from school, work, clients, dealing with my car being in the shop for six days, OHMYGOD do I love having my car back, I have broken down pretty quick.

I’ve been very careful since the break up to not listen to certain music.

I’ve gotten caught once or twice when I was in a ride share on my way to work and the driver had something come on the stereo that knocked me for a loop.

Cue wearing my ear pods on all drives to and from where ever I was going.

As well as making sure to listen to music at work that’s very upbeat.

I’m sure there’s more grief to grieve.

I lost my best friend and we have a no contact agreement.

I have felt lonely  and lost and sad.

I have also felt some freedom I wasn’t expecting and some relief that it’s done.

Walking around last week for five and a half days knowing that I was about to break up was harrowing.

Just the relief of not having to do that is tremendous.

I haven’t looked at photos either.

And I’ve not gone looking through texts or emails.

Maybe I’m packing too much swaddling around myself.

I don’t know.

I just know that the first time we went through a break up it was so horrendously sad I walked around for days, weeks, feeling like I had been beaten.

And I couldn’t stop crying.

I have had a few moments of unbearable crying jags, but just not to the extent of last time.

I was also not practiced at the breakup.

He and I have gone through it two times officially from my side and once, in a sort of conditional way on his side.

Third times the charm I guess.

Oh.

I do sort of still hope that something miraculous will happen.

That he will decide to alter the things I asked him to alter and we’ll be together.

And I know I can’t wait around for that, it probably won’t happen, and I can’t live my life hoping.

I have to live my life in faith, I know that.

The situation I was in was untenable and I went on in for almost two years.

I’m lucky to have known the depth of love that I had but I also went through a lot of pain.

A lot.

Things were just never quite what I wanted.

Fuck.

Now I’m teary.

Shit.

I thought I’d make it through.

Oh well.

My person reminded me that it wasn’t that there was a lack of love if anything that was what made it so terrible to do, we were so in love with each other.

We’d frequently call the other the One, or soul mate, or magic, or love of my life.

So, it’s rather heartbreaking that we couldn’t get around the issues that broke us apart.

I could wish it different, but I couldn’t make it happen.

And man.

Did I try.

I really tried to be super flexible and not look at things with black and white thinking but in the end I wasn’t getting my needs met and he and I both knew it and he was guilty and sad for it and I was upset over it and it wasn’t working.

God I wish it had.

Ugh.

Now I know why I wasn’t wanting to blog.

I knew that I was going to process emotions doing this and now I’m typing and crying and the heart ache is there and it doesn’t matter what I’m playing on the stereo, it’s all love songs about him anyways.

Well, that was fun.

I just precipitated a crying jag with my head on my table.

Ugh.

I can’t really avoid myself and my emotions when I’m writing, they just naturally come up.

Sigh.

And I can have some compassion for the part of me that doesn’t want to feel and has kept mighty, mighty, mighty busy not thinking about it.

I am sad.

I am tender.

I miss him so much.

Fuck.

I miss you darling.

I miss you so bad.

Bear Witness To

That’s what got me today.

Not the music.

No.

I was careful about my music choices people, I’m learning.

But the wanting to share something with you today.

I wanted so much to pick up the phone and talk and tell you how my day has been, how my week as been, how I feel overwhelmed and that I can’t do it and then you would tell me I could.

I was going through my private practice folder, trying to figure out some things and I touched the leather of the binder and I suddenly lost it.

I remember standing outside the restaurant after brunch when we were on vacation and looking at these soft, supple leather folders and purses and bags, gorgeous hand-made, hand tooled, beautiful pieces.

I bought a bag for files and a folder for my legal pad and I was so happy, over the moon, to be there walking through the city with you, the sun shone down, and yes, there was some sadness that day too, we had some talks, but there was the etherealness to it to.

I remember how you always offered me bites of your food, how you know me so well and in my abstinence you always took care to be kind about my food choices, well, maybe you teased me a little, but you were so sweet.

I was struck by how, later in the day after much walking, you grabbed a hotdog from a street vendor and had a couple of bites, then you ripped off the bun from the un-eaten end, and offered it to me for a bite too.

All the small, sweet, considerate gestures that do me in.

But it was that folder today.

I cried out loud.

I wanted to tell you about what has been going on, how things are moving forward, that I have an office to sub-lease, that I have rent to pay, that I have things happening, that I printed off another syllabus and read from one of my new books, that I had struggled today to not be anxious about all the things unfolding.

When I picked up the folder I realized that you were no longer here to witness me, to tell me how proud you were of me.

I know logically that I don’t need someone to pat me on the back and say, hey you’re doing a great job, I can do that for myself, most of the time, but it just struck me hard, I wanted to tell you and I can’t.

All the things I want to tell you.

I wrote you another letter today.

I told you a little fantasy I had.

I wished for you happiness and joy and kindness, sweetness, and grace.

I pray for you every day and every night and I pray to make it through to the next thing that I have to do.

I have a lot of things to do.

I did get a lot accomplished today and I am proud of myself for doing as much as I did.

I cooked.

I roasted a chicken and I made a turkey and vegetable stew with brown rice.

I cleaned my house.

Aside.

Man oh man, put a syllabus in front of me with homework on it and watch my house suddenly become sparkling clean.

I mean, I cleaned my house.

I have even started tackling some things like cleaning out the freezer, I figure I won’t be here much longer and if I tackle small bits of a big job they will get done eventually and not all pile up on me right as I’m making my move.

Second aside.

I have a place I am going to see on Wednesday.

I know, I said I was waiting.

But have I told you how loud it is here?

It is loud.

And it is uncomfortable.

I saw an ad last night on craigslist and I thought, wow, I should respond to that.

It’s not in a neighborhood I would have ever even thought to look, Sea Cliff, and it’s a unique housing situation, an Au Pear (which means guest cottage), with a drastically reduced (for San Francisco) rent with the caveat that when the family that owns the main house is away the tenant takes care of their dog.

I went to bed thinking, do I want to clean up dog poop and get up early to walk a dog a couple of times a month/year?  I don’t know how often the family travels or what exactly the schedule of care looks like, but yeah, do I want to clean up dog shit for a lowered rent on a cottage in Sea Cliff?

A cottage.

A stand alone, one bedroom with a library!

Oh my God, my little PhD student heart went pitter pat.

In Sea Cliff.

Now if you don’t know San Francisco that means nada to you.

But if you do, you know that Sea Cliff is crazy high-end, big houses, big sprawling yards and gardens, by Baker Beach with all the iconic views of the Golden Gate Bridge you could shake a stick at.

The house is literally across the street from the ocean, the cottage has ocean views.

There is also very little traffic in Sea Cliff, no buses or municipal vehicles go through it, no trains, it’s not quite a gated community, but it is super high-end fabulouslity.

A cottage in Sea Cliff would probably rent for $7,000 and upward, I may be lowballing that number too, I think it’s pretty rare that anything in Sea Cliff would actually be rented, and if there are rentals, well, they are freaking expensive.

So a cottage, again, a one bedroom with a library and the biggest freaking windows and wood floors for $1680 a month that includes utilities and parking and laundry?

I’ll pick up some dog poop people.

I have an appointment to see it on Wednesday.

I’ll keep you posted.

And in the meantime.

Love of mine.

I think of you often and wish we could talk and dream of a time I can once again be in your arms.

And yes.

Of course.

I cry.

In cafes with my confidant, at home holding things close you gave me, in the car listening to our music.

I hope you are well, I hope you are muddling through.

I miss you.

I love you.

Always.

Always.

Your baby girl.

In The Quiet

In between the sound of the ocean coming through the back door of the studio, the sonorous bellow of the fog horn and the running trains along Judah Street, I fell into the grief.

I knew I would.

I knew it would happen when there was down time, low time, time to allow the feelings to move and pass.

I was reminded tonight, as I sobbed with my head on the table at a cafe in the Castro, that the grief would come and it would go and I was not going to always know what would trigger it to happen.

I mean.

Some of it was obvious, that Stevie Wonder song playing in the grocery store with the refrain, “I love you, I love you, I love you,” crooning out of the speakers.

Great.

Tearing up as I get my bulk oatmeal and brown rice.

The sappy love songs at Firewood Cafe tonight, I don’t even know who they were by, I didn’t recognize the singers, I don’t listen to much contemporary pop music, they were just cheesy love songs, but they left a tender spot on my heart.

Some things were less obvious.

The Mason jars.

They were a surprise.

The grief overwhelmed me when I was putting away dishes from my dish rack this afternoon.

Mason jars.

I don’t have vases, so I use wide mouth Mason jars as vases for flowers.

I threw away the flowers he gave me last week.

He gave me flowers on Tuesday and again on Wednesday.

My room was a bower.

They were beautiful.

I thought about pressing some of them, but it felt too sappy and mopey and when they started to wilt I decided it would be better to compost them.

I tossed out one of the bouquets that was fading faster than the other and contemplated letting the other stay in residence in my kitchen for another day.

After all the trash and compost don’t go out until Monday evening, I could keep them around for another day.

But there was something about not wanting to see them wilt further and needing to let them go.

So I threw them out too.

Pretty flowers in the compost bin.

And yes.

I did feel a ping of sadness when I closed the lid to the bin, but it wasn’t so bad and I was happy to keep on with my day.

A day that was a lot of chores and cooking, laundry, and tidying up.

A day with a lot of writing as well.

I wrote a tome this morning.

Then I wrote to him.

I have a journal that I bought and I have been writing him love letters in.

It helps to let him know how I feel even if they are not being read by him.

Writing helps me process.

And it help me find the grief, locate it, and allow a little more out.

So I was completely taken aback when I fell to pieces putting away the Mason jars.

I took the first one and something popped in my chest.

I realized that I was never going to be putting flowers from him in the jar again.

I literally burst into tears and started sobbing.

Retelling the incident to my person is what led me to having my head down on the table at the cafe tonight.

“You don’t know that,” he said to me.

He was right.

I don’t know that.

I hope so much that one day he will give me flowers again.

Then my person made a nod to my wrist.

“Did you give that to yourself, or….”he paused.

I panicked.

“NO, it’s from him, I can’t take it off, I don’t want to take it off, 3/4s of my jewelry is from him,” I said tearing up again and shaking my head.

It’s a beautiful silver infinity bracelet from Tiffany’s that he gave me for graduating with my Master’s Degree.

The infinity symbol was meant for us, that we, our love is infinite and never-ending.

It hadn’t even crossed my mind to not wear it.

I have worn it every day since he gave it to me.

What would it be like to not wear it?

Heartbreaking.

Just stomp on my crushed heart a little more why don’t you?

I love the jewelry he has given me.

He knows my heart well and has given me such precious things.

And yes.

He is the first man to ever give me anything from Tiffany’s.

I have a few blue boxes in my cupboard tucked inside sweet little blue bags, with thick white ribbons wrapping them all up.

I don’t want to think about giving those up or putting away my jewelry.

Not yet.

Maybe not ever.

Just, well, just not tonight.

I was able to let go of some things that don’t need to be in my house though.

Sugar and flour.

I have baked him a birthday cake and I have baked him cookies and made him nice pasta, imported from Italy, and cooked him lovely things.

I love to cook for someone I love.

He was the best person ever to cook for.

Ever.

But I don’t eat pasta and I don’t eat sugar or flour and I don’t foresee baking for a while.

Plus, I reasoned, I’m moving, best to clean out some of the cupboards.

So I put that in the compost too.

Maybe I should compost my heart.

Perhaps some flowers will grow from it.

I will water them with my tears.

Cut them when they bloom.

Put them in a Mason jar.

And.

There I will keep them very well.

 

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.

The Jumping Off Place

I was talking to my therapist about all the things today.

All the things.

My God.

So much to cover.

It’s been a busy few weeks since last I saw her.

The buyout happening.

Looking for a new place to live.

My upcoming interview with another private practice internship.

Relationship stuff unfolding.

Going back to work.

My PhD program starting in less than a month.

Paris.

France.

My relationship with Paris and France and how I have always looked for something there, something intangible, but with a similar feel for what I have looked for when I have gone to Burning Man.

That I’m not going to Burning Man this year.

And.

That I don’t feel at all bad about that, it feels right.

There is so much transition happening.

I am grieving the loss of my home.

I love my little home and it’s unfathomable to me where I am going to land next and things will be very different wherever that is.

The packing up and putting away of the life I created in this space will be hard.

Saying goodbye to it will be hard.

Thinking about it is hard.

You and I together, together in this room.

I have so many memories of this space with your face all over it.

Your body there, in that corner, on my bed, sitting, sleeping, everywhere I look, there you are.

And you are no longer here.

Removed.

Away.

Gone.

And like the feel of you in my bones, you are here in these walls, on these walls, the photos of us together, that will get packed up in a box and put away.

They won’t go up on the new walls of the new home and when I think about that.

Well.

I am sad.

I thought of it this morning and I cried.

Good thing I was on my way to therapy.

Ah.

Love.

How I shall miss you.

I miss you already.

And there is something terrifying and exciting about this next part of the journey as well.

I feel like I am at the pinnacle of a mountain about to leap off.

But instead of falling.

I see myself flying.

I just don’t know where I am going to land.

I do know.

It will be where God wants me to be and I do know that I won’t be dropped.

I will soar.

I will sail.

It doesn’t mean that I am not afraid, I am afraid.

I don’t know what to do without you.

I have believed, shit, I still believe, that we are meant to walk through this world together, hand in hand, side by side.

The ease I have with you.

The attachment I have for you.

How will I be without you?

I keep listening to this album by Herbert.

British electronic pop house music.

I got turned on to Herbert by a clerk at a record shop in Noe Valley back in 2007?

I was enthralled and for whatever reason, the music has seemed so apropos to what I am going through.

Tears fall down my face when I least expect.

Staring out the window at work looking at the avocado tree and thinking of you and all the other times I have sat and watch the wind ruffle through those leaves.

When I used to be so antsy with anticipation to leave work because I knew I was coming home to see you.

The feel of you on my skin, in my bones, against the line of my neck, the touch of breeze on my skin a whisper of where your mouth would soon be.

Gone.

But not the memories of  you.

I fear that those memories will fade when I move.

I won’t see the shadow of the bamboo blinds on the back door slatted with sunlight splayed on my bed, just that one spot when I rode astride you, my hair full of sunlight, your face golden, and your eyes, the pool of them that I fell into without having any idea of the ocean of love I had dived into.

How will I be when I can’t hold those memories of you within these small four walls?

Different.

I know.

I maybe, well, I don’t know yet, but I know it will be different.

Perhaps I won’t cry as much.

I can see you everywhere in this studio.

There is not a place your presence hasn’t touched.

You are everywhere.

Sometimes it is unbearable and sometimes it is sweet, although, truth–it was never bitter and I suspect it never will be.

I have no regrets my love.

I have none.

Nary a single thing I would have done differently.

It all carried me here.

You and I together, together in this room.

And I am at the top of the mountain and I cannot see through the fog and mist to the valley below.

I cannot tell where I will land.

Where I will go.

Only that go I must.

Only that.

I must leap.

I must leap.

I must.

I shall kiss the sky.

I shall pinion upward.

I shall.

But before I go.

I will take these last few sweet moments to hold you dear.

Darling.

Love of mine.

To hold you momentarily just a bit longer in this room.

Which really.

Is just another reflection of the room in my heart.

That room where you will never exit.

I promise.

Even when I cease to live here.

You will always live in me.

The Song Hit Me Hard

Like a nova in my chest.

A painful sunburst of love, loss, longing.

I wanted to reach out so very much.

I didn’t.

I just sang along to the song in the car driving down Division Street.

Pushing up the hill between Valencia and Guerrero with flashes of sun piercing the July fog.

You there with me.

In the car, in the song, in the spaces between notes.

I managed.

All day.

To out run you.

Out write you.

Out manoeuver you.

I was not going to sit idle with the feelings.

No.

Not when I could drive them off with business and doing.

I am glad I was doing the doings.

And sad too.

I finished the big project, the internship application.

Remember two weeks ago today?

Remember sitting in the cemetery with me when I got the news?

I burst into tears.

Sitting in that green vibrant lushness that sprung from the brows of dead men.

My face.

Your voice sick with concern.

The tears falling without thought of being in public.

It’s a cemetery.

I’m sure there have been tears there before.

You said why don’t we just go home?

And I wanted to.

But there were places to go yet.

Rabbits to burn.

Bridges to cross.

So to turn round.

Two weeks, to the day, a project, another application, another launching of hope onto the sea, a small newspaper boat with a popsicle stick sail, all I wanted.

All I wanted.

Was to reach out and tell you.

I did it!

But you were not there to reach for.

So I moved.

I ran out into the day.

I did things to prepare.

I am going on a trip tomorrow.

I have zero excitement for it.

And it’s Paris.

I should be over the moon, in the tops of the trees, singing the soundtrack to Amelie.

Or something like that.

But it’s Paris.

Without you.

That makes me.

Well.

What rhymes with you?

Blue.

Yes.

That will work.

There is rain in the forecast.

And all I could think about was your eyes in the shower, how bright they are when you are sleek and wet, how much I wanted to fall against you.

Press into you.

Stay hidden.

And seen.

In the waterfall of warmth and never leave that small space.

I saw the weather for Paris.

Rain.

“I love Paris in the rain,” danced through my head.

I would love it more if you were there walking in the rain with me, eyes wet and full.

You weren’t with me last year when I was in Paris either.

Yet, you were.

I remember walking along the Left Bank, hurrying to find cover in a cafe before the rain hit.

Nestling into a corner in the back, connecting to wifi.

And voila.

There.

Your face on the small screen of my phone.

I won’t have even that this year.

In Paris.

I will be sad.

But it will be in Paris.

Which makes it prettier, sexier sadness.

But sadness nonetheless.

And now.

Now that I have stopped running.

The sadness swarms me and I recall you telling me how to run into the feelings.

Have them.

Just have them.

If I can’t have you.

I can at least have the feelings.

There are so many.

So many.

I can’t outrun them all.

As.

I can’t stop loving you.