Boom

It’s the last word of this beautiful, exquisite, love story.

Foodie Love.

I have no idea how I stumbled onto it.

But I did.

I have cried watching every episode.

It is all the things.

I watched it nostalgic for places I have never been, Limoux, France, Toykyo, Japan, Barcelona, Spain.

My friend M. would tell me, “Car! Why have you not gone to Barcelona, Car? It is so you, bright and colorful, eclectic, eccentric, beautiful, you would fit right in Car. You should go.”

I haven’t been.

Damn you pandemic.

I haven’t been anywhere, Joshua Tree I suppose, but that didn’t really feel like traveling, since I was in Paris, December of 2019 celebrating my birthday and Christmas because I could not handle having another Christmas or birthday without you.

I had a brief boyfriend for a moment, we would text often when I was in Paris, the texting was sweeter than the actual relationship which went so fast it was surreal.

He said he loved me on our fourth date.

He asked me to be his girlfriend on the second date.

I should have ran away then.

But he was sweet and smitten with me and young and for just a few moments he would make me forget you, oh eyes of blue.

Until he didn’t.

In fact, he made me miss you more.

You haunted me all over Paris, despite this texting flirtation with the young man.

I bought him chocolate, thinking of you.

He ate the whole box when I gave it to him, like the little boy he was, in one sitting and gave himself a stomach ache.

I got him a t-shirt from a cafe, one of my favorites in the Marais district, Cafe Charlot, a cafe I wish I was sitting with you in it, dreamily gazing at your over a cafe creme. I told him it was a future promise, I would buy him a bacon cheeseburger with pomme frites when we came to Paris together….if the relationship lasted that long.

It did not.

Last long.

That is.

On my birthday you looked at my LinkedIn profile. While I was in Paris texting the young man in Oakland.

I discovered this days later and teared up, you had not looked at it in secret mode or private mode, or whatever it is that lets you look discretely at someone’s profile. You looked and wanted me to know you were thinking of me on my birthday.

This last birthday.

We spent it together.

Half-Moon Bay.

I wore Comme de Garcon and black Tretorn sneakers.

We ate take out sushi at the beach.

You told me, “next year let’s go away for a whole weekend, find a place like that little bed and breakfast we walked by in town.”

You wanted to come again to that beach before that, make a picnic, have a blanket, burrow into a dune, burrow into me.

“I just want to get lost in you,” you said to me often.

I was alright with that.

I liked getting lost in you too.

Of course.

All the sad things came back to me, the reflux flared up again, damn you internalized feelings, the tears started up again and we’d agreed, if I got sad, we would stop.

I got sad.

Christmas day by myself sitting at my kitchen table eating oatmeal opening up a present my mother had sent me, a duplicate of an ornament she’d already sent the year before.

I burst into tears.

Thinking of you with your family in your house with your wife and your child and your dogs and your Christmas tree, wearing new Christmas socks and smiling, smiling, smiling.

Last week, last Sunday, I mailed you a card.

I wrote, “tu me manque” in French.

I miss you.

I pressed my lips to it, leaving a kiss mark on the interior of the card.

A big glittery card with a heart on the cover and Je t’aime on the front.

I do like the Frenchie stuff you know.

I carried it around for a day.

Don’t mail it.

Mail it.

Don’t mail it.

Mailed it.

Then I woke up the next day in a panic and had fantasies about stalking the mailbox and making the mail man, woman, person, give it back to me.

Even though I knew they would not.

What the fuck did I do?

I had a nightmare.

I dreamt your wife found out about our affair.

I dreamt it was March 17th and I was making you a birthday cake and you were so mad at me that your wife found out.

March 17th is not your birthday.

And I never told your wife.

But you did.

I think, in some ways, she always knew.

Maybe, maybe, maybe she was ok with it, not consciously I suppose, but maybe it helped the facade of the partnership.

Affairs are not the problem in a marriage.

They are the symptom of a problem.

And often they are had to keep the relationship going.

One gets what one needs to stay in the marriage.

“I just want to get lost in you.”

I gave you love and wrote you poetry and baked you cookies that you would keep in your glove box.

I wonder if anyone ever got in your car and marveled at the smell of peanut butter chocolate chip cookies that must have permeated the entire interior.

Better than a paper evergreen tree air freshener.

I made you happy.

Until I made you miserable.

Gave you that ultimatum.

Drove you to panic.

For that I am everlastingly sorry.

Watching you have a panic attack when I asked you to chose between her and me.

Gah.

Years later your face still haunts me.

I did try you know.

I tried to be ok with it and bend and contort.

I wanted you so, so, so bad.

I still do.

Never stopped.

And that is ok.

I can want you and I can not have you.

I walked around Jefferson Square Park this past week, past that stupid mailbox where I mailed that card, and realized, fuck, really truly realized, that I knew, knew in my heart, that you were never going to leave your wife.

So why did I keep going back to you?

Why?

Love, I suppose.

Tragic, romantic, unruly, unreasonable, stupid love.

I’m paying a lot in therapy to figure this all out.

And I know where it stems from.

Childhood abuse, blah, blah, blah.

I am writing, have written I should say, a dissertation on it.

I know the material pretty well.

And yet I can get stuck there again.

Beating myself for doing something my little inner voice said, hmm, maybe don’t do that.

I didn’t send you the playlist on Spotify, at least I didn’t do that, the one called “I still love you.”

I know, very creative.

But I didn’t.

I just listen to it and cry.

So.

Watching this show stirred all the things.

As two souls find themselves, two wounded humans, on a first date in Barcelona, having a coffee, and the arc of the love begins.

It’s astounding and so well done.

The scenery made me long for travel again.

The writing, suberp.

Really, the best, and the acting, so, so good.

I felt bereft watching and a deep longing.

I want all those things, the passion and the intelligence and the balance and the power, the love.

The first time the couple kiss, one of them says, “boom”.

And you, the viewer, the watcher, the voyeur, know, what they are saying is “I love you.”

I want that.

I want that with someone.

I almost wrote with you and deleted that.

The small, quiet, inside voice knows that is not possible.

I have to want it with someone else.

I have to let go.

I have to hope that you don’t get the card, it gets lost in the mail, or it is returned to sender, address unknown.

I have to let myself meet someone else.

Someone who will be ok if once in a while I cry at a show reminded of you, even if they don’t know why, they will hold my hand and kiss my neck, scoop the hair off my face and look into my eyes.

And say.

Boom.

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.

 

Changes

More changes today.

Letting more things go preparing for whatever else is to follow.

One big thing.

I closed my credit card account.

I opened an account for the first time in over fourteen years about 11 1/2 months ago.

I got a $5,000 limit.

I felt really uncomfortable with the card and unable to actually use it at any time over this past year.

I realized that I was on the cusp of having it for a year and that there would soon be some sort of user charge and I really had no use for the  damn thing and why pay to have it when I don’t use it?

So.

Closed account.

I swear, the automated voice sounded so sad when I asked to close it and double, triple, quadruple checked that I indeed knew what I was doing and that are you sure?

Yes.

I am sure.

Close the damn thing.

I don’t need it and I don’t want to use if for frivolous things.

I’ve been ok without credit cards for 13.5 years.

I will be ok moving forward.

I mean.

I was able to buy a car without one or a history of having used one in years.

So whatever I buy will continue to be paid for in cash or with my debit card.

And speaking of things I don’t use.

I cancelled my membership to Yoga Beach SF.

I just don’t go frequently enough to justify the cost.

Plus.

Well.

I’m not as much into yoga as I thought I would be.

I really think that there is a better work out for me and I am going to be exploring getting into the swimming pool.

Plus.

I am going to be moving.

I don’t know where yet, but there’s a good chance that I won’t be in this exact neighborhood, so better to close it out and save the money.

I also did some cleaning up of my phone.

It was hard and I didn’t want to do it at first.

But I kept thinking about it and I decided I needed to delete the text chain of messages that I have had with my ex for this past year.

So many pictures.

So many words.

So much love.

I haven’t lost them.

Or deleted them out of my heart.

But I let them go.

I have plenty of saved photos in my gmail account.

Anytime he sent me a particularly handsome or sweet or sexy photo, which was most of the time, I would send it to myself and save in a file in my gmail.

I took it off my phone because I was afraid I would get lost in it, get sad, get distracted, be in pain, and ruminate on the relationship.

I also deleted two voice mails.

I had saved them because they were so sweet, aching with longing and love and so much of his essence, but I knew that it would be too easy to dive into a pool of despair and get lost in his voice.

I chose not to.

I was a hard choice.

But I felt better afterward.

I took down our photos in my studio and put them away.

I have plenty of reminders of him in my home without having to look at the two of us smiling in complete joy at being with each other.

The pictures are seared in my brain anyway.

The memories so brilliant and vibrant that I don’t doubt that they will not soon fade.

I did these things out of self-care.

Not because I want to erase him from my life, but that I need to stop the yearning for him.

I need to focus on myself and take gentle, deep, sweet care of myself.

Keeping busy is a part of that.

So supervision tomorrow at my current internship and then a three-hour orientation at my new internship directly after that will suffice for the keeping busy part.

Then a sobriety anniversary party for a friend.

Then doing the deal.

Then dinner with a friend and his boyfriend.

Then dancing at Public Works with a dear girlfriend I haven’t seen in months.

I am trying to keep myself busy and surrounded.

Being alone right now is not the wisest idea for me.

I also had dinner with my person tonight and really got to talk and connect and cry and feel.

Oh feelings.

I’m trying to let them happen too, I just don’t want to live in them constantly, the pain is great, I am trying to let a little happen when it can.

I know when I have a chance to sit still it will hit me hard.

I expect that to happen on Sunday.

For right now though, I am just trying to minimize things and be kind to myself.

I feel like I am wrapping up my ex in a sweet, soft, warm blanket and putting him to bed in a safe place where all is kindness and love and rest and ease, a safe place in a room a little removed from this one so that my heart has a little more space to heal.

I will always have the experience of this great love, I just need to not wallow in the not having it right now part.

It’s too easy to slide into self-pity and despair.

A place that is not healthy for me to dwell in long.

No.

Not healthy at all.

 

Weird Little Wednesday

Not bad.

Actually pretty fucking good.

Just a little odd.

And I realize that I am ok with a little off, a little odd, a little skewed, sometimes that is fun.

I flirted via text with the guy from last night, but let me be honest, there were other reasons why mama didn’t go down that road, walk over that one block and jump into bed, and I realized that more fully today.

I have a sort of laissez-faire attitude about it in my blog, but there were some underlying things on my radar and after doing some writing and some processing I am pretty sure I won’t be running over to my neighbor’s house to “borrow a cup of sugar.”

I have plenty of sugar in my bowl and there are certain things that are important to me, we have some lifestyle stuff that is just not a great match up for me.

The nice thing or the interesting thing, is that although I got a few cute texts today, they dried up at one point and there was nothing there.

I’m glad I didn’t have too much concern the flirting was nice, validating, fun, but in the end, just flirting.

It doesn’t have to go anywhere and just because someone wants to make out with me doesn’t necessarily mean that it is the best idea for me.

I have some clear ideas about what I want.

Speaking of validating though.

Man is it nice to get a clear and direct message about being an attractive woman.

Someone who I had a crush on from years ago when I worked at the Angelic Brewing Company reached out to me today via messenger and just basically propositioned me.

I mean.

Maybe not outright, outright, but the entendre was definitely implied.

It was fun to flirt and say hey, if you ever make it out to San Francisco we will have to hang out.

I don’t see myself making it to Chicago anytime soon.

That’s where he lives.

But fuck.

It was, again, really fun to flirt.

I like flirting.

Hell I may do some tomorrow night too.

I have a date after a speaking engagement in the Inner Sunset.

I’m quite looking forward to it.

And.

I have no expectations.

Which rather floors me and is nice too, I’m super relaxed about the date, it doesn’t mean anything, I am exploring whether or not I want to hang out with someone and that’s it.

I look forward to getting dressed up.

But then again.

I always look forward to getting dressed up.

I like dressing up.

I love being a girl.

I love being feminine.

And.

I love being sexy.

Granted.

I won’t be too sexy tomorrow, I have to work a full shift before I go to do the deal and then the date.

But.

I will be pretty.

And pretty will suffice.

And when I feel pretty I feel confident and confidence is sexy.

So.

I’m covered.

Life is fun.

I also had some unexpected movement in my schedule this week and I will have more time on Saturday then I was expecting, I should be able to knock out a paper that day and perhaps even get one started or at least outlined on Sunday.

There’s only three more weeks of school for this semester.

Three!

I was supposed to meet a couple of people back to back in the Inner Sunset, but one cancelled and the other re-arranged with me to meet up on Sunday.

Thus freeing me of my obligation to go to the Inner Sunset at all on Saturday.

I basically will do yoga in the morning, then shower, breakfast, coffee, writing, and more writing and more writing until I leave to go do the deal around 6:30p.m.

I will be able to get to one paper and finish it completely.

I am sure of it.

Super grateful for that.

And if I’m able to hang out after on Saturday I will, a friend will probably meet up with me there and I’m going to wrangle her to fellowship.

I ducked out on fellowship tonight, but did catch up with a friend over tea at my house while listening to jazz and the unexpected rain shower.

Hope that clears by tomorrow.

The loveliness of riding my scooter to work and getting to be outside in the sun was really good for me.

Life is really quite sweet right now.

I was not expecting to have tea with my friend tonight, or have flirting messages with an old crush from years ago.

I was not expecting to feel so alive and frisky today.

But I am.

I did.

And though it was a strangle little Wednesday, it wasn’t bad, just different, and a slight slanted perspective on things is good for me, widen the lens, get a better view, see things different and love my life just a little bit harder, fiercer, deeper.

It’s a good thing.

This.

It really is.

I Have A Question For You

Why are you single?

You’re gorgeous.

Wow.

Thanks darling.

That was super nice to hear, especially in my nanny regalia, which granted is cute, but not sexy.

I also got the sexy compliment.

Which coming from a FIREFIGHTER made my day.

Did I just turn down sex on a first date with a firefighter?

FIREFIGHTER!

Fuck.

I did.

Damn it.

First off.

I’m going to TMI y’all right now.

First day of a my period is not my sexy time.

It can be, I can and have had great fucking times on my period, but for my first time with someone, my first hang out, yikes, not so much.

And.

I didn’t shave today.

So.

No.

I’m not sleeping with the firefighter.

Right now.

Ooooheee.

God damn.

Smokin’.

And nice.

He was very nice.

We “met” on Tinder.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, like last summer, I think, when I was still using the app, but we never quite connected.

We’re not friends on facecrack but he does follow me on Instagram and, yes, that’s right, I had my first time getting asked out on Instagram.

That was a new one for me.

Kind of fun.

The crazy thing is, we live in the same neighborhood.

Like.

A fucking block away from each other.

Shit.

If it weren’t my first day on my period I would throw myself in the shower, shave them stems and um, heh, go make a new friend.

Ahem.

FIREFIGHTER.

Ok.

I’ll stop now.

firefighter.

Heh.

I feel like Samantha in Sex in the City when she goes to the firehouse.

Of course, in the episode, I think she got stranded naked in the station when the alarm goes off and her date has to leave to go put out a fire.

Not really the outcome I want to have.

Anyway.

Said gentleman, liked one of my posts on Insta and sent me a message.

The timing was pretty spot on, I had just gotten in and I was registering for fall classes.

And I was messaging with some of my classmates about classes and things and I get the message let’s get a coffee.

And of course.

I’m intrigued.

He’s gorgeous.

And well.

I’m trying to be spontaneous.

And we live in the same neighborhood.

I asked, “let’s get coffee sometime or tonight?”

“Tonight.”

Well then.

I suggested tea since it was late and we met and hung out and marveled that we’d never run into each other before, I mean, he literally lives a block away on the same fucking street, but nope, never seen each other in the hood at all.

We flirted.

There was flirting.

There was a lot of flirting.

And I let it stay there.

I am actually rather amazed that I did.

Of course when I got home I got a few more messages.

This time on my phone, I figured we’d gotten to know each other enough that I could give him my number.

When he texted me and asked me why were texting and not making out I just about fell out of my chair.

I told him I had homework.

I told him I was writing.

I got flustered and broke and dropped the TMI bomb.

“That has nothing to do with us making out.”

Oh damn.

I’m not flustered at all, at all, at all.

Ok.

Well.

Maybe a little bit.

I did, before we parted, give him a little information, as he asked the why am I single question twice, I think he may have also been implying that he might want to try out for the position, or perhaps just positioning himself to be, I got to stop, I can’t even go there.

Um.

Where was I?

Oh yeah.

I did tell him I was seeing people, that I had, in fact a date on Thursday, but that I wasn’t exclusive with anyone, not that I would be, the date Thursday is a first date, but all in all, I have to say, um, super fucking validating and fun experience.

I liked his confidence and I liked that I felt confident too.

Even in my nanny togs.

If a man thinks I’m sexy in a long sleeve black dress with black leggings and Converse, well, that bodes well for when I am actually in a put together outfit.

I don’t look slovenly, there’s that, I won’t lie, if I thought I wasn’t looking pretty I wouldn’t have left the house in my work clothes.

But.

I also didn’t feel like trying really hard on a Tuesday night to get all made up and glammed up, especially to grab a cup of tea at Java Beach.

There will be time.

I told him that was very tempted by the make out, but, I decided, for me, that it would be better to go on another date, before leaping into the make out.

So.

I asked for a rain check.

Who is this person?

And.

He said, absolutely.

And we text flirted a little more and now I’m up past my bed time, but, so what, that was fun.

I haven’t had that kind of forward as fuck attention in a while, super fun, super validating, sexy as fuck flirting.

I think the Universe did that one up on purpose.

Thanks God.

I needed that.

And.

Um.

I’ll take hot make out with a firefighter for $200 once I get my get out of Jail free card from my body.

Anticipation is also not a bad thing.

Not a bad thing at all.

Giggles to self.

Ok.

Going to stop this silliness now.

Night.

Sweet dreams.

Or

Incindiary.

Same/same.

Heh.

 

Thanks

But no thanks.

I said it out loud.

I tossed the item that has been sitting in my closet for months now into the trash and I brushed off my hands.

Done.

And.

Done.

Yesterday evening I ran into a former lover.

I hadn’t seen him in months.

Someone I had some passion with, but also some one I had some issues with and eventually ended up saying, to myself and to others, enough is enough, this is not working for me.

I unfriended said person on Facecrack and I deleted his numbers in my phone and I blocked the numbers and then.

Well.

I let him go.

Which was good.

I had plenty of other things to distract me with and he wasn’t in a place and I wasn’t either.

As much as I might have tried to kid myself I had done too much personal work to know that it was going nowhere and I was just going to get more and more annoyed with myself if I continued to play into the situation.

I had to have help seeing that.

I normally do.

So when I found myself, last night when I got home, contemplating not telling the person that I do work with about having run into the lover, well, I knew my motives were no good.

“You’re only as sick as your secrets,” and “your secrets will take you out,” both rang in my head pretty much right away.

I picked up the phone.

I called my person.

I left a message.

I did some inventory and e-mailed it off.

I go at a resounding let’s meet tonight answer from my person this morning and a text from the old lover this morning.

Hahaha.

Ah.

For fucks sake.

The ex-lover was texting to offer me some help with my scooter.

But the thing is.

It didn’t feel like it was about my scooter.

Oh.

Maybe.

But.

REALLY.

When I looked at myself, when I wrote out what was going on in my brain, oh, my motives were no good, they were all a twitter and all gossipy and all what will it feel like to hop on the back of his cycle and go for a ride.

And stop it.

Oh no you don’t.

Lady pants.

Just because you want to rev your engines does not mean this is the man to rev them with.

In fact, you emphatically said you wouldn’t with him again.

So stop it.

And there was no emergency, no need to engage, no need to return the text, I could wait until after work, I could wait until I met my person at Church Street Cafe.

I could tell the tale, the hello’s and how you doing’s at the spot last night, I could talk about the offer to fix something that really has no need to get fixed (a cosmetic fix on my scooter from when it got hit) and I could talk about the titillation and I could be honest.

And.

Yes.

I took the suggestion to respond to the ex-lover with a “Hey, thank you, but I’ve got it taken care of.”

Or something to that effect.

I don’t think I was quite that verbose.

Then.

With a tiny bit of hand holding, even though I knew I would all along, I deleted the text, deleted the number and blocked the number on my phone.

Done and done.

I am ready to be dating and loving with someone and I am so in need of getting some kissing in, but I don’t need to be going backwards.

I deserve to be treated well.

And I have to start with myself on that, I knew this guy was not the one, but there was a bit of a dance and it was fun to be pursued and god damn he was handsome, but, there wasn’t enough there, not enough for my heart, not enough for my brain, and the sex was nice, but let me be honest, not that great.

Certainly not great enough to go stir the crazy pot again.

I am so grateful that I stopped before heading down the street with the big man-hole that I tend to fall into and I stopped to look, to ponder, and instead of going down the road alone, I called and talked to someone else, and said, I won’t go down the road until you can meet with me and we can talk about it and if I go down that road, I’ll have a hand to hold.

But.

You know.

That road has been closed for repairs.

Big old road block.

Dead end sign.

The bridge is out.

Take the other route, you’ll be better served.

When I saw my person walk in through the door at the cafe I knew, hell, I knew as soon as I left a voicemail last night, yup, I won’t be seeing the ex again and I won’t be accepting any help with my scooter.

I want that foot board fixed I can take it to the shop where I bought it.

When I got home this evening I fished the box with the part out of my closet and I threw it away.

I don’t need anything in my house that will tempt me to continue down that closed road.

There’s a brighter way through for me.

There’s a fun way, a happy way, a way in which I can honor who I am and that I get to be treated better than I was.

I deserve the best.

I am grateful that I can “act as if” and know that yeah, sure, it might have been fun for a minute or two with the ex, but ultimately it would have been fun with problems and eventually just problems.

I got to skip through all that.

And now I’m clear for take off.

Easy skies.

Bright blue.

Open to possibilities.

Not obsessed with a relationship that did not work for me or trying to figure out how to make it work for me now.

Nope.

Ready and available for the man who is ready and available for me.

No distractions.

Thanks.

But, really.

No, thanks.

 

Second Wind

And I have no idea where it came from.

Maybe the adrenalin of riding my scooter through the Mission and over the hills towards the Outer Sunset on a Saturday night.

Oh.

Yeah.

With the left over drunken idiots of what used to actually be a cool San Francisco treat.

Santa Con.

Look drunk hipster santa with drunk elf in fishnets, get the fuck out of the way, I just came from Psychoanalytic class and I am not interested in either your psycho-sexual dramas or your apparent desire to play out the Death Drive in jumping out into the street looking for your Uber, Lyft, taxi or other vehicle of conveyance.

Get ye the fuck back to the North Pole or wherever the fuck in the Marina you came from.

Please.

And.

Thank you.

It could be that I just had a second wind because I had to take the time to run to the grocery store, I slightly miscalculated my food for the week, no biggie, but without something to toss in my oatmeal in the morning, apple, etc, I was going to be a very sad lady.

So.

I dashed in and out of the SafeWay in the Castro, which was happily devoid of trashed Santa’s and drunk elves, although definitely equipped with a plethora of cranky trolls working the registers.

I got what I needed and jumped back on the scooter and actually made it inside my house by 9p.m.

I have no idea how the hell that happened.

I left class at 8p.m.

Happy to make such a quick trip and feeling adrenalin from the mad grocery dash and the defensive driving back home, I used it and threw in a load of laundry, packed my lunch for tomorrow, balanced my check book, opened and hung up a few Christmas cards and threw myself in the shower.

I am still jacked up.

I didn’t have any coffee past 10:30 a.m.

Although I could have used one and I thought about it.

Nope.

This is pure herbal tea and adrenalin.

I suppose I am just getting the end of the semester, almost there, keep pushing through, last day of classes is tomorrow, shot of energy.

I do hope that it wears off before I crawl into bed.

The last two nights I did not sleep well.

And I thought after Friday’s full day of classes and little sleep I would totally have gotten some.

But I was up.

I had a bit on my mind.

Blocking someone’s number out of my phone and the ramifications of how and when to set some boundaries really came up for me.

I didn’t really write about it last night as I was caught up in the spell of Christmas magic, but yeah, I have had some uncomfortable interactions with a person and through my own fault, I fully concede I let them step all over my boundaries, a situation that I could have rectified by choosing to not engage with the person, well.

It blew up.

Not, I suppose as bad as it could.

But for a minute there with the text messages coming in rapid fire and the tone and quantity of them.

I got a little spooked.

I have a history of having dealt with some trauma around a romantic relationship that turned sour and the man who I had dated and lived with for five years, after a rough break up, started to stalk me.

That continued for two years.

I will not say this person was stalking me.

I just felt that old fear come up.

And I realized that I was the person who invited it into my home.

I was mad at myself.

But then.

After the awareness.

Fast acceptance.

I don’t believe I have moved so fast from awareness of a defect of character to acceptance.

It rolled right through me.

I forgave myself and realized that I had failed to listen to my gut in regards to the person a long time ago and that listening to my gut is important.

I have been listening.

I hear rumblings, but don’t know what they are associated with and then I start to have feelings and those feelings I ignore.

So.

No more ignoring.

And then some action.

I did some inventory.

I erased the messages.

Actually I was busy erasing them as they came in.

I probably erased ten or twelve of them in rapid succession, then I realized I needed to call in the troops and I got on the phone and talked with someone, checked in, got my suggestions.

Got off the phone.

Deleted more messages that had come in during the conversation.

Then gave myself a big pause.

Took a big breath.

Prayed.

And organized my self.

Picked up my phone.

Scripted a very simple text.

Word for word what had been suggested to me.

Sent it out.

Blocked the contact in my phone.

I had already taken the person off my facecrack friends list earlier in the day.

Perhaps an early warning sign that something was on the horizon.

I will likely see this person next week.

We swim in the same waters, so to speak.

And I am ok with that.

I don’t believe there will be face to face confrontation, in fact, had the person called, I would have taken it, but the mass texting was too freaky and after one very pointed, passive aggressive, manipulative text, I had no inclination to speak with the person on the phone.

That option went right out the window.

I learned some powerful things and I acknowledged deep in myself that I knew this was coming.

Which may have been why I let it go as long as it did.

Not healthy.

Not for me, not for the other person.

However, I am not, will not, beat myself up for the experience.

In my own limited way, I was trying to be of service.

And the other person, well, I believe, too, was trying to do the best that could be done.

That’s what I believe.

That at the bottom of it all.

We are good people.

Communication sometimes goes astray.

And sometimes I need to have space from a person.

That is ok.

I get to be grateful for the time and the growth experience.

And I hope to rest well soon.

One more day of classes, and I found out my day will end a little early, 3:30p.m. instead of 4p.m., a nice gift for the last day of classes.

Almost there.

One final presentation project and two papers to go.

And.

Like that.

My first semester of graduate school.

I am utterly amazed.

And still unfortunately.

Wide awake.

Oh well.

So it goes.

At least I have a Christmas tree to keep me warm and bright.

And dreams of Paris soon to come.

Did you think I forgot?

Ha.

There’s No There There

And it was lovely.

I received a cute text message from my ex-boyfriend this morning while I was making breakfast and plotting my moves for the day–what to pack, laundry to do, marketing that I needed to do before leaving to come back up here to Glen Ellen–I’m just in, 27 minutes ago I landed–and I had no emotional reaction.

I saw the text.

I recognized the number.

I saw the photo.

I laughed out loud.

It was a photo of an inside joke we had and that joke might have been one of the sweetest things about our relationship that I can feel now a warmth and fondness for.

It was so nice to realize that.

I cut up an apple and tossed it with cinnamon and nutmeg, and some sea salt, threw it in with the oatmeal on the stove, turned to the electric tea-pot, took the kettle, poured boiling water over the fresh ground coffee and felt my inner emotions.

Nothing.

No fear.

No excitement.

No anxiety.

Nothing.

Wow.

That is so nice.

No animosity!

Just a quiet gratitude for the man, for the message, and for the sweet memory that he sent me, a funny little inside joke that had been a place of resting laughter for both of us even when the break up was sad and hard to do.

It felt nice.

We exchanged a few more texts then he went his way and I went mine and I forgot about it until I was working with a lady bug at the house and we were going over some instructions on how to write inventory.

I pulled my notebook out of the stack and flipped open to the pertinent inventory and laughed as I saw my ex-boyfriends name at the top of the list.

I shared my experience with quiet gratitude and showed how I was able to get from that place of resentment to where I am now and that it works, it really works when I do the work.

Live and let live.

Easy does it.

First things first.

There again, an hour later with another lady bug, the same gentle reminder that the solution and the problem have nothing to do with each other and that really I can practice spiritual principles, stay in gratitude, and do the next action in front of me and I will be abundantly taken care of.

Exquisite.

In fact, that’s what this whole weekend was about.

What the last few weekends have been about.

Yesterday I got a text from a friend in regards to our busy ass schedules and how we had been trying to make plans to see each other before Burning Man and how it was obviously not going to happen, she was till packing and I hadn’t located my bins nor even gotten to the point in my day when I knew where or how I was going to buy said bins, and nope, not going to see you before the burn.

I mean, we live in the same town.

But.

There was no way to make it work so we made a date to go dancing on the playa–she and I and another friend had gone to the NIMBY Steampunk Masquerade Ball that the Airpusher Collective played at where the Flaming Lotus Girls Serpent Mother was fired up (yeah, I know, you haven’t been to Burning Man and have no idea what I just wrote) and the same group is doing a repeat of the ball on playa.

So.

I will be going to that.

And when we commiserated about work, and doing the deal, and all the stuff, when I texted her what I had to get accomplished before I leave for Burning Man, it left me breathless.

I mean.

Really?

How the hell am I going to get all this done and not lose my mind?

But then I read, again, “first things first,” and knew I would get it done by focusing exactly on the task in front of me and not living in the next hour or the evening or tomorrow.

I just stayed focused on what exactly was in front of me.

Then I wrote three pages long hand, did my laundry, made my bed, did the deal, knelt down asked for some stuff, said some thanks, pulled out the bins, started packing them up, slow and methodical.

I went to the grocery store and picked up a few things to just get me through the day and a birthday card and gift for one of the ladies who was coming over to the house.

Back to back to back.

I met with three ladies, did some reading, shared some experience strength and hope, asked in return that they do some things while I was away at work, confirmed our calendars for September–I won’t be able to meet with any of the ladies until after my first week on campus on school.

Then.

I texted my ride to Glen Ellen.

Confirmed a pick up time 20 minutes from the text.

I packed my bags up for Glen Ellen–a coupled days worth of clothes, my laptop, the books and readers and notebooks pertinent for the week and what I have to do for school before I leave.

I then proceeded to finish folding the laundry, take out the trash, and organize my bins.

I packed them more than 3/4s full and was on the last leg of packing when my ride pinged me.

I have perhaps fifteen minutes of packing left to do when I get back to SF on Wednesday.

I got my stuff for Glen Ellen, locked up the house, hopped in my friend’s car and we headed over the bridge.

A pit stop in Mill Valley for an hour of doing the deal, then a drive through the rolling golden lit hills of Sonoma to Glen Ellen.

We grabbed a bite to eat and figured out gas costs that I need to reimburse him for–he’s basically done the trip there and back and there and back and there and back for me, since I didn’t rent a car this time.

Then a dash up the road and I am here at 9:30 p.m.

It’s 10:15 p.m.

I am almost done with my blog, I’ll make a cup of tea, chill for the rest of the evening and get a good night’s sleep before work in the morning.

I couldn’t see how the day would play out when I was awoke with the bang and thump of my housemates little girl and her friend playing, I couldn’t have imagined such a smooth and seamless transition from here to there.

Nor that I would have such moments and pockets of grace and gratitude for the experience of just living my life to its fullest.

One day at a time.

One hour at a time.

One moment at a time.

Easy does it and there it is.

I’m here.

All the things are happening.

And I got done everything that I needed to do this weekend to be prepared for my trip to the playa.

Tomorrow and Tuesday I will write my two papers.

Then I am good to go.

I get to show up for work tomorrow happy and rested for the boys.

I get to continue to live this full, happy, joyous, free life.

I am the luckiest girl in the world.

Seriously.

I mean.

Have you seen my hair?

Text Me No Texts

Part deux.

I mean it was an honest mistake.

Then I thought later, and not much later at that, there are no mistakes in God’s world.

I received a text this afternoon as I was heading to the park with the boys, they had been scrumptious today, although the day was long, and I was ready to be done well before I was.

I was a bit nervous about my travel plans for the evening.

As I write I am at many thousands of feet above the Earth, the empty plastic cup of orange juice testament that I am flying elsewhere.

I only drink orange juice when I fly.

I have no clue why.

Perhaps it is because it’s a treat, I don’t drink juice in regular every day life, coffee yes, juice, not so much.

The flight has already been a bit challenging, we sat on the runway for over an hour and a half before we were cleared to fly—there was a woman who dropped a cell phone and it somehow slid between the wall of the cabin and the seat and could not be retrieved. The mechanics had to ascertain whether or not the signal from said phone was going to interfere with the navigation equipment of the airplane.

That’s a new one for me.

It was an intense hour and a half as well, the engines were at a half throttle and the sound was overwhelming, I felt trapped in the a horror of metallic noise that would not abate.

I have never said the serenity prayer for so long, a constant and continuous loop.

“Wait,” he said, “and took me by the shoulders, “pray with me, say one word at a time, and breathe,” as I stood at the security check point at SFO in December about ready to fly to Anchorage to see my father, in a coma, when last I had seen him framed in my sister’s doorway in Madison, babysitting my nieces.

He was drunk.

Not obscenely so, but buzzed and he smelled of beer, a saturated smell and the soft rot of regret, cigarettes and sweat that I have long associated with my father.

Flash forward a dozen years and I was going to see my father in another kind of door way, one I was not sure he would cross over or stay, just here, on this side of the threshold.

I stood, shaking at SFO, trying to breathe, trying to muster the strength to go forward, through the fear, and out the other side, knowing only that I knew nothing and had no compass for what was going to happen next.

I breathed in and out and said the words.

I followed his lead.

He hugged me and I walked through security.

I feel now that my father’s trauma and how I walked through it were a harbinger of the end of the relationship.

Or perhaps, its mid-point.

It was never going to get better than that.

The relationship went down hill and though it was short it was intense and though it was hard, it was sweet, and though there are things I won’t ever say in my blog, I did a lot of work to work through all the things that came out and up and I kept showing up to the page, to my heart, to my self.

When I thought I was going to go mad with the aloneness that can sometimes overwhelm me and I was walking Ocean Beach crying on the phone with my person, missing my ex, or better, the theory of my ex, the company, the shoulder that I momentarily leaned on, the person who taught me to breathe that prayer, I felt as though I was always going to be alone.

That even though the relationship was never the right fit, that it was the only one that I would have, that I wasn’t deserving of more and that, was it.

It’s not it.

It wasn’t it.

I have more in me.

So much more to give and have and hold and receive and be and I can see so clear how it, the relationship, was the stepping stone to the knowledge of who I am and what I want.

Funny that.

A two-month relationship, nine weeks total, and all the things I learned.

And lo.

There is still more to learn.

The photograph popped up on my phone from an unknown number.

A couple of bunnies jumping.

And a goofy tag line.

“Ahahaha, that’s hysterical,” I texted back.

I didn’t recognize the number, “who is this?” I added.

Then I sent it without thinking anything.

Who sends me memes?

Nobody.

Oh.

Shit.

Oh.

I typed my ex’s name followed by a ?

There was a long time before there was a response.

The text response was odd and I don’t remember it, I don’t recall it, or really the others that follow, only that after a few back and forth messages, well, I stopped engaging and I deleted it—the string of messages, I didn’t want to reread them or think about them or argue about he misunderstood me.

The gist of his understanding was that I had deleted him from my life, like I had the number.

Huh?

That our relationship meant nothing to me and that I just erased him out of my life and WTF? And yeah, ok, I get it, blah, blah, blah, “it’s a defense mechanism” and a few other things.

I was sad.

No.

That was not what I meant.

And I don’t owe and explanation, so I didn’t give one, but no, that’s not what I meant.

No.

Not at all.

I did not know what to say, I know he saw some bunnies, he obviously thought of me and he reached out and when he did, well, gosh, I had forgotten him, I had just scratched him right out of my life.

I don’t suppose I ever will, I haven’t forgotten the men I have been in relationships with, though more than one of them I am not in touch with and will never be.

Jesus.

I don’t like texting.

I didn’t like it when I was dating my ex and so much of the communication was via text. It feels rudimentary, solipsistic, unformed, emotionally small, non-communicative, and overall, vague in the worst way.

An emoji is not an emotion.

I can’t read a person’s mind.

I can’t see their face or hear the tone of voice being used.

So much is lost.

So much.

I felt sad.

Sad that this man, who I do care about, from a distance, who provided such support and kindness to me during a horrific time in my life, misconstrued my meaning.

But that’s not my fault.

Texting is vague.

Easily misunderstood.

And I feel a way to engage without being fully emotionally present and aware.

It is subterfuge.

It is not conversation.

It is flat and one-dimensional at best.

I deserve more.

I want to be here, in this moment, full and alive and loving.

What I want is reality and not a one-sided conversation with a fantasy person.

It’s hard to show up and be present.

It’s vulnerable and tender and I don’t always want a person to see me.

I was shellacking my eyelids with glitter earlier, layering it on thick, I felt sad.

I was missing someone this morning, I had not been in communication with my friend who I had been talking to a lot since the LA trip and the emotion hovering just there was a touch lonely, a touch melancholy.

“I’ll miss you when you are in Atlanta,” he said to me.

I’m going to miss him, I thought, and then realized, oh.

OH.

Oh damn it.

My person was right! I do hide behind the make up.

I saw myself, pretty, yes, done up and shiny and sparkly, and who’s that hiding under there? Who’s glamming it up to not show how they feel?

I realized as I got ready, I felt so at ease around my friend that by the time the trip was over I was barely wearing make up, let alone lip gloss and yet, I felt more beautiful and more seen and more myself than I have in years.

Communication.

With myself.

Another layer and another depth of personality plumbed.

This is a meandering blog and I’m not sure how I can tie it up neatly and communicate what I want to communicate.

I want to be seen.

I want to be heard.

I want to see you and hear you.

I want to connect.

I want to love and be loved.

These are all so true and simple.

To the best of my abilities I try.

I may not understand the language God is speaking to me, but I don’t know that it will be via a text that I will begin to comprehend the totality of my person.

I don’t want to hide behind glitter or emoticons.

See me.

Hold my hand.

Walk this world with me.

And let me be.

Present.

As I walk beside you.

Punked

But not for long.

I made it through the week and that is saying something.

I changed or something changed and it all changed.

It was still a tiring week though and I am grateful that I have the weekend off and although a bit disappointed to find out that my person is not available to meet again this week, I will get to see some friends and head over to the East Bay to see my dear heart who just had a baby a few weeks back.

I still get to be of service and I get to hang out with friends.

Not a bad way to spend a Saturday.

I’m not 100% sure how things are going to fall out tomorrow.

Suffice to say that I’m going to get picked up either here or in the Inner Sunset around 2p.m. and then accompany my friend to North Berkeley where we will be seeing the mama and the baby with a few other friends and doing the deal.

It’s nice to take the deal over to the new mom.

I feel very grateful that I get to help out.

In whatever small way I can, which was really, just making the time to do so and contacting a few people on the phone.

You know, that thing that everyone stares at but rarely seems to talk on anymore.

I saw someone make texting motions to indicate a letter she recently wrote someone and I had to take a pause.

First.

How long can the letter be if you are typing it out with your thumbs?

Second.

That I even knew what she was referring to.

“Oh, you’re one of those people now,” an old friend said to me when I flipped open my new cell phone and took her number.

I was very proud of my old Sprint flip phone and I had it for quite some time.

Until I dropped it in the toilet at Tosca.

Oops.

No need to really elaborate on what I was doing in the stall, it was not peeing, I assure you, and how flummoxed I was when I fished it out.

I had just placed a call and my dealer would be rapidly swinging through North Beach to make his delivery.

He always rang me and I would come out from where ever I was and hop in the passenger side door and we would chit-chat for a few minutes as he drove around the block.

Catch up.

You know.

Like friends do.

Friends who deal drugs to you at any hour of day or night and make a nice fat income off you.

“I don’t know why he’s calling me,” I told her frantic on the phone.

“I don’t owe him any money,” I continued.

I always find myself grateful for that, I never asked for fronted drugs and I never copped unless I had money.

Which was part of the problem at the end.

“I don’t have a problem with cocaine,” I told my room-mate in a huff.

I had overheard him explaining to a friend of his who was visiting (who had happened to get me mighty high at the End Up the prior weekend) that I had a problem.

They were smoking cigarettes in the kitchen, adjacent to my room, and whispering in gossipy undertones about why I was still in my room at four in the afternoon.

You would be too if you hadn’t gone to bed for three days.

Please.

When I next saw him I had my words, “I don’t have a problem,” I continued, zooming into his space as he was frothing milk for a cappuccino, “my problem is that I don’t have enough money to afford doing the amount I want to do.”

Um.

Yeah.

Mission Control.

We have a problem.

But I did quit.

And I was shocked to get the message from my dealer.

He wanted to “talk” to me about something.

I was walking up Valencia Street where it ends at Mission and heading home towards my new little tiny rented room at the foot of Bernal Hill on Kingston at 30th.

And I was freaking out.

“First,” she said on the phone, “you don’t have to call him back.”

“But what does he want?” I cried, “I don’t get it, why is he calling me?”

She laughed uproariously.

I did not know what was so funny.

“Carmen, honey, he probably wants to know if you want any blow, he’s probably wondering where his good customer has gone off to.”

The rooms and I ain’t never going back.

“Oh,’ I said.

“OH!” I cried out, “of course, that makes perfect sense.”

I never did call him back.

I realize tonight that yes I am tired.

But not that kind of tired.

Not the kind of tired that was soaked into my bones.

The constant repetition of I’m not going to do it, I’m doing it, I don’t want to be doing this, why am I doing this, please stop doing this, I’m killing myself, don’t do it anymore, I’m not going to do it anymore, it wasn’t that bad, I can do it just this weekend, it’s a three-day holiday, I’ll just get a couple of grams, it’s not a problem, I don’t have a problem.

Fuck me.

I have a problem.

And I am ok with it.

I have a solution today.

So, tired.

Yeah, sure, it was a long week, but it was a week full of joy, yes some exhaustion and some tears, and some frustration, but also a burgeoning of flexibility in my schedule, an unleashing of wild pink hair, a happiness to have rent paid, my student loans paid off for the month, and friends that I get to see and a new baby in the mix.

I don’t mind getting a little tired to have that.

As well as reconnecting with an old friend.

Who was swell when I said, I got to go, friend, I’m beat, the groceries in the bag got to get in the fridge and I have to get on my bicycle and pedal out to the beach.

And that is alright too.

A quiet Friday night in is not a bad thing at all.

I’ll be ready for the rest of the weekend and refreshed.

Because tomorrow.

I’m sleeping in!