Not Girlfriend Time

Welp. Apparently, it's over. He wants to be "friends." I'm not going to prattle on about it. Not too much.

I think I might be okay. I feel a little bit of sadness creeping in today, but it has nothing to do with missing him, or feeling lost or any other thing related directly to us breaking up. It's mostly that I'm broke and my social circle here is currently very limited. I don't have a lot of outlet. I am and will make friends, I will find my place, but it's 6:36 on a Friday night, and I know I'm staying home. I know no one will be calling me to see if I want to go to a thing. I know no one will say, "Hey Sarah, I need to talk. Can I buy you a drink?"

I have plans tomorrow night. With my two new friends, Mia and Sharon. They are insta-likes. My people. My age. I think Sharon's a little older. Sarcasm, dark humor, graphic sexual conversations, warmth. My people. We're going to see a band I saw on Tuesday that's fantastic. Right now, I don't have enough money to pay the door fee. Wait. Maybe I do. I've got $4-something in my bank account and a few coins on my mantle. Together, I may be able to pull together $5. This is where my life's at. That means a 2-mile bike ride to the bank before noon so I can pull out that money.

Thpppt.

For Joey, this has all been intense. For me, it's been the first time I've done a relationship closer to the way I see others doing it. Smartly. I picked my battles more wisely. I kept many things to myself that annoyed or frustrated me that were not important. I "fought" when I had to with as much grace as I could. And I fell slowly in love with him, and deeper as time went on, instead of feeling everything all at once and needing to fulfill myself with intensity within the relationship. I learned to allow myself to be inside the relationship without over thinking it. But, it is a testament to my sometimes faulty ability to read people and a situation that somewhere in the last few weeks, he decided to break up with me, while I was falling deeper in love and thinking of him less and less as a temporary object, or something to be regarded tentatively. And maybe he sensed this, because it happened shortly after I began to fall deeper, that I could sense certain problems forming. A couple days before we broke up, we went out to dinner. I mentioned my ideal way of dying, at 85, in bed with my partner of 50-ish years, of carbon monoxide poisoning. It was all well and good until I laughed and said that he'd be 77, which seems a little young to die. I felt him get just the slightest bit colder. I think he was already near his decision at that point, at least subconsciously. Somewhere in the last month especially he started to make the pile of my faults that would tip the scales in favor of the decision he already made. I learned a long time ago not to do that. It's just a shitty, shitty thing to do to love. Instead, I let those things make a pile and make sure I keep very clear that there's another pile, too. One of love, past good deeds, the way the sun bounces off his eyelashes. And those things always bring me back to the right place. And eventually, things get better.

I won't be writing any songs about this one. I won't be waxing rhapsodic about it being the best relationship I ever had with the best sex and the best connection in all ways. That isn't what this was. This was a kind love. This was patient and warm and safe and I loved it very, very much. It didn't have peaks and valleys of emotion, it stayed steady. I got mad and frustrated and upset with him, but it was never that mad, that upset, that frustrated. For the most part, it was just good.

He disagrees.

Well, okay then.

I need time to not be Girlfriend. I told him this. My offer was we take this month off. I'll be out of town for two weeks for Thanksgiving anyway. I can get my head together about this place I live in, get some money made, etc. I'd leaned too hard on him for emotional and financial support in the tumult that's been my first two months here.

And you know what? Things feel better without him. That isn't to say I don't still want to be with him. That isn't to say I want this love to diffuse itself so it can coalesce some other day for another. I just need a fucking break.

Barf. Child.

It's about 80% hangover making me feel nauseated, but there's a good chunk of wtf doing it to me as well.

I've been thinking about having children.

Who am I fucking kidding. I'm 35. I'm not going to have a child. I'm 35 and have a life about as together as the average 27 year old.

It's just not going to happen.

I started watching one of those Wigs shows on YouTube, where actresses of some note get the opportunity to delve into a "character," a "wig," if you will, and the shows are all about some serious issue women deal with. All well and good. The first I watched, Blue, with Julia Stiles, threw me last year as it was about a mom who has to prostitute herself in addition to having a day job, in order to make ends meet with her young son. A lot of the same issues I've dealt with, in my work, and in my life, were raised in that show.

The shows consist of clips that are about 7-12 minutes long. Little show blurbs to watch on your coffee breaks at work, and the like, I'd guess, was the pitch idea on that one.

Susanna, the one I've started, stars Anna Paquin and Maggie Grace. It's honestly not that compelling and it's more upsetting than anything in a way that makes my gorge rise a bit.

Anna's character is a new mother suffering an obsessive compulsive post-partum depression meltdown. Maggie's character is her stable, mature younger sister with a "real" job.

I've always wondered if I'd be a good mother. I've sought assurances in friends on that front. I used to have a terrible temper. Physically violent sometimes. It's still in me, it's just that I've learned ways to diffuse it within myself in seconds instead of letting it out. It's amazing what just stopping for a second and looking at the situation while in the situation can do. And understanding consequences is a lot of that. "If I throw my phone across the room at my boyfriend, it will hit him hard enough to hurt him, might break my phone depending on whether it hits him, might ricochet and hit something else breaking my phone AND the other thing, and then the fight will escalate, boyfriend might leave me, then I'll be out a phone and a boyfriend and have to replace thing that got broken."

But with a small, vulnerable thing that can't defend itself that's been crying for hours? I don't know how my brain would work with that. I am terrific with other people's children because you can always give them back to their parents when things get stressful. You can go to your quiet home and blare Ryan Adams and sing at the top of your lungs and not have a baby to wake up. You can always get away from the small, vulnerable thing.

And there's the dependence. Sometimes, with four cats, as much as I love them, I think, "Dear god, you are making my life so much harder." You can't just pack up and leave any place with four cats. It's hard to find apartments that will take you. People call you "Crazy Cat Lady" and they think they're hilarious. I can't even go on vacation or a trip for a few days without lining up someone to check in on the cats, change litter, replenish food and water. And that dependence is very, very minor compared to a baby. A baby that becomes a toddler that becomes a child that becomes an adolescent that becomes a teenager.

If I told Joey any of this, he would think I am only thinking this because he is freaked out and doesn't want kids right now and might never want them. While it's true I am thinking this out loud because of the conversation we've been having, it's always been there. Always.

And I know all of these fears are normal. But I'm 35. I really just want to be in a happy, stable relationship. I don't think about the future with Joey. I just love him.

I just wish he could do the same with me, be willing to consider compromises down the line, and acknowledge in a meaningful way that I have moved my whole life to make this work, and that I am willing to get rid of my cats down the line, or even sooner, to have an environment he can be with me in.

Okay. Writing this out makes me feel less like barfing.

Louisville! It's... Kinda shitty. Right now.

It has been three months and some days since my last confession.

I am in Louisville.
My apartment has roaches.
The downstairs neighbor, and cause of the roaches, is a mentally ill, opportunist, dick bag shut in who has a slightly less mentally ill "roommate" who scream at one another at least 2-5 times daily and that likes to yell nigger at him when he doesn't come to supper fast enough. To wit, neither of these men are black.
They both chain smoke, and it comes straight up into my apartment. So bad, sometimes, that the smoke actually makes my bathroom hazy (where the worst of it infiltrates). I have to close the bathroom door at night to actually sleep, turn on the ceiling fan in my bedroom, and sometimes the fan on the air conditioner near my bed that is inexplicably caulked into the window it rests in.
Thankfully, it is not cold enough that any of those helpful things matter.
Thankfully, those two mirthful residents of apartment #1 have been evicted as of Tuesday, and will be forcibly removed from the property this coming Tuesday, if they do not go willingly. Thus far, there has been no packing.
I do not expect Tuesday to be anything less than a parade of expletives and screaming 'til they are both hoarse.

Typing hoarse, I realize I have rarely, if ever, typed the word. It feels quite clumsy to my fingers.

My relationship with Joey, as a result of a lot of this, is, to put it mildly, strained. He broke up with me on Halloween night, in the parking lot of the ValuMarket where we get our groceries, where we'd parked intending to walk down the block to trivia with some of his friends. I was looking forward to it, I greatly enjoy those friends of his. They are my kind of nerds. Warm, friendly, attractive in the way that those kinds of nerds are. They remind me of many of my male friends back home, of the Dan who is not my ex, and of Steve, my Guardian Gnome. The nerds I also played trivia with in Minneapolis.

Joey had shown up an hour late, and didn't notify me that he was running late. I had been in the middle of something, work, that I'd had to stop to get ready to be picked up by him. I sat for almost an hour, in my coat and scarf. I could have been working. I could have made anywhere from $10-$100. Who knows. Such is the way of my work.

And right now every penny counts, counts to a dramatic, borderline operatic level. And he knows this.

I wouldn't say he was spoiling for a fight, but he'd been keeping several things to himself that had been bothering him, and there are certain things we do, as fallible creatures, to piss other people off when things boil too long under the surface. Whether we realize it or not. I don't think he was late, an hour late, knowing I could have been working, on purpose. I think he did what I've done a million times, and that's to occupy myself with other things that stretch into the time I'm supposed to be somewhere else, because I am mired in thoughts and feelings I can't quite make sense of. It is sabotage. Self-sabotage, relationship sabotage. So I told him plainly that not informing me was not okay. He responded tensely, and with sarcasm, that he'd been busy. Too busy, apparently, to say, "Oh hey, I'm busy over here, I'll be there closer to 7 and we can go to Target after trivia."

It came out pretty quickly that my work bothers him. A lot.

I work in the sex industry. I have, in some form or another, for years. I was a SuicideGirl (still am, as they own my "persona" on there in perpetuity due to the ugly contract hundreds of us signed because we were so thrilled for the "honor" of being named an SG), and that started ten years ago. I worked as an erotic masseuse for a year and a half before I moved here. Since July, I have been working as a cam girl.

I am neither proud nor ashamed of this as a job. I do nothing I don't want to do. I am free to choose my own hours, to deal with the people in my channel in any way I choose. If I don't like what someone says to me, I can block them. If I want to give someone a stern talking to for their disrespect, I can. And I do. In about four hours of work per day, I usually make around $100. I am hoping to increase that amount to two or three times that, and to be online more often than I have been.

But, I just started going full bore on this about two weeks ago, once I started being able to be in my place more, once I was able to unpack (the fumigations and roach issues have been enormously stressful on me and on the four cats I've had to move several times to live with strangers since they can't stay with Joey). Once I was no longer almost entirely living at Joey's (which is just about the worst thing that can happen to a new relationship, no matter how much you care about one another. These things have to breathe).

So, I guess it's bothering him now. It's a reality, and not an abstract thing. I am actively getting attention of men who pay me to see my body without clothing. I am very comfortable with this, and I am good at it. It's not as lewd as one would think. A lot of the time, it is fun, and I spend a lot of time laughing with these people. For every 68 year old war veteran who is offering me $100,000 to impregnate me (good lord), there are a dozen men who are between 21 and 37 who tell me I'm beautiful, treat me with respect, and tip me with kind words, often not even expecting a flash of flesh in return. There are a lot of lonely people in this world, and I have always been good with lonely men.

In massage, I formed much more serious bonds. It was physical work, first of all, I was actually touching them. Sensually. I have enough of a compartmentalization capability that it didn't matter that much to me most days. It was work. But some men were gross, entitled jackasses who believed they were going to enjoy a handy despite the repeated, clear language in all of my emails that that is not what would take place.

But yet, I did become friends with some of these men, and even this morning, I thought, "I should write to Jeff and Chris and see how they're doing." Jeff has a marriage that doesn't involve much affection, with a wife who is depressed, chronically. He loves her, but he goes to women like me because it is a grey area. It's not "technically" cheating, in most of their minds. They enjoy physical bonds, snuggling, I would kiss their faces and necks, their backs, rub my breasts on them. And in the end, we would masturbate together. It is a strange thing to feel like good friends to these men who had such sensual encounters with me that I got no real pleasure out of. Yes, I orgasmed, I could probably get off looking at a bowl of maggots. Mind over matter. And I'm not saying these encounters were anything even approaching a bowl of maggots. Anyway. It wasn't an intimate bond. It was work. But still, they became friends.

A couple of my former clients are Facebook friends. A couple have come to see my band play. They are respectful of the boundaries I put in place. That's the world I cultivated in that work for myself.

And now, with cam, it's a similar, but far, far more removed situation. I have never been a prude, I have never had any real sexual hangups. Sex and sexuality are a many splendored thing.

Would I be jealous if the tables were turned? Absofuckinglutely. In fact, I honestly don't know that I would do much better with it than Joey is. But I wouldn't break up with him over it, and all I can do is reassure him that while yes, men are ogling me and getting off while doing it and paying me for the pleasure, I am doing a job, and that's all it is to me. I am forming less of a bond with these men than I did with the majority of my massage clients. And good lord, if I can get this to work for me financially, maybe, finally, I'll have some money sacked away and I'll be okay.

This move has been absolutely fraught since the moment I got here. I suppose I have come to a level of comfort with the baseline of stress, but fucking hell, that I've been working on cam and making the money I need to pull ahead and no longer rely on Joey to keep me fed (I couldn't cam while living at his house, where his sister and best friend live for obvious reasons, nor at my place, given it was too roachy and utterly unpacked until about three weeks ago). I'd had my bills paid through October from my grandma's estate money. But him feeding me, and footing the bill to drive us to Minneapolis over my birthday weekend for my band's last show, and fronting the money to board my cats during fumigations, well, that's taken its toll on us, on him. So coming into my own again financially has eased so much. Until he said he couldn't deal with the work I'm doing.

Which, is kind of an ultimatum. My other option, as a 35 year old woman with no real education is to be a waitress, work 16 hour days, get sexually harassed daily and have no recourse for fear of losing my job. I did that shit for 18 years, off and on. I know where that leads. It leads nowhere. It leads to frustration, feeling small, and depression. Not to mention illness from working long hours around tons of people and consistently not getting enough sleep.

Fuck that noise.

And I am bored with writing this. The other deeper issue is that he is worried, because he is 26 (nearly 27) and not interested in marriage and kids, that I will feel I have wasted my time and will resent him if I stay with him. Fuck that noise too.

It's on the same line as "You're moving in two months, let's break up now to spare the heartache later." It's fear, and it's a cop out. And it's silly.

To end a mostly happy relationship because you're afraid it'll be harder later is just about the most ass-backwards love-related self-sabotagey thing I can think of.

Pffffft.

I haven't slept next to Joey since Sunday night. We're talking on Wednesday. No point in being pessimistic about it, but shit snacks.

I want a bagel.

Fail on the way to win

It is taking some adjustment to be in a happy, healthy relationship. Joey accepts me, unconditionally. He is patient and loving. With him, I am not pushy, or intense, and when he tells me he's eaten some horrible food covered in cheese and I chastise him, he tells me to push harder because he wants to be healthy--he's got myriad seasonal allergies and has a shit immune system and I'm trying to help him eat better, and he loves that I care and give him helpful suggestions of things he can eat that are healthier. With him, I haven't experienced any anxiousness at all, at any moment, aside from the anxiety and frustration I feel that he is so far away from me and there's not much to be done about it right now. It's been three and a half weeks since I last saw him, and my finances are currently in a shambles (it's the 7th and I have $0 toward rent, so rent plus other bills and debts I'm behind on total $2574.39, all due before August 5th. Normally, that would be totally doable, but my work has slowed to a crawl, and I'm transitioning into other work that so far is also proving to be a bust. It seemed like this new job would be something that would really open me up to getting squared financially and starting some savings and finally being on my way to buying a house, but it's been completely disappointing thus far. It is something that can potentially pick up, though, so I'm going to persevere. And quit the other job to devote more time to this.

So, the happiness and excitement I felt initially when I began this work has resolved itself as the image of a brick wall, again. The wall I've seen for the last year, the wall that says, "Sarah, you're almost 35, and you're a failure."

Today, I realized something important, though. I realized that having someone like Joey in my life does not make me a failure. I have had people love me, care for me, be patient with me, but not like this. He is a natural caretaker of the anxious and the neurotic. His actions are preemptive. I never react badly because there's nothing to react badly to. He curtails my usual fears by simply being himself. Instead of being frustrated that we haven't seen one another and that our next meeting is uncertain because I can't afford to get there (he's got a 9-5 M-F job, so coming to see me doesn't make much sense, especially since flying is several times more expensive than me traveling to him by bus), he just says that everything will be okay, that he'll be there any time I can get to him. He tells me he misses me every day, but his patience is contagious. It's okay, it's all okay. Three weeks may feel like a long time, but by October 1st, which is two months and three weeks away, I'll be living there, and I can see him all the time.

Yes, I'm moving to Louisville. I will be getting an inheritance of $5,000 from my grandma's estate, and it should arrive within the next month or so. I had really hoped I could piggyback another few thousand onto that and buy a house, but I will have to wait. It is what it is, and it is what I have to accept.

I am learning how to make sense of someone good. I am feeling my neural pathways reset. To stop craving extremes, and to accept that being with someone so even-keeled is going to mean being bored or not wholly stimulated all the time. I am going to have to learn to be easier going. And I am.

What's most noticeable to me is how I perceive the world around me now. I have always made excuses for bad behavior because I understand it. One of my first therapists always cautioned me against this behavior in myself, and while I took his advice to heart, I was never able to act on it. I find myself doing it now. There are so many things about Chris and our relationship that were destructive. From the first hours. Within the first 24 hours, we had gotten into two minor fights and he'd made me cry by being insensitive and rude. We had an intense connection, and we got on famously in so many ways, but looking back on that, that kind of constant intensity and tension, it frightens me a little. He is not a bad person, but that was not a good relationship. It pains me so much to say that, and to acknowledge it, and I find myself feeling angry with myself and at him. I know what I could have done to be better, but I also know he needs a lot of help to be better himself. I am also seeing how I have been an enabler to so many of my lovers and boyfriends and friends. Chris is a mean drunk. And he IS a drunk. I made excuses for him, when he told me he was an alcoholic, I told him that it wasn't true. But it is true. He doesn't get through more than a day or two without getting drunk. And he is rude, and unpredictable, and he blacks out when he drinks, and so much of our fighting happened in those situations, and yet I always encouraged us drinking a bottle of wine together, or him drinking when we were out. I, and Chris, and Lindsay, have been operating in the mindset of drinking = fun. But I'm finding out that's simply not true. I go out and don't drink or drink half the amount I used to, and I am still having a ton of fun. I'm just choosing much better people to have fun with, these days.

I may have curbed Drunk, Slutty Sarah a while ago, but Drunk Sarah remained. A friend is going through AA. She's really together and amazing now. I was an enabler to her as well, and I'm ashamed. She is far more fun now than she ever was drunk, but yet I always encouraged her drinking, even though I knew she didn't know when to stop.

Things are changing. It's so good. Every day is still a challenge, but I am surrounded by the love and support of my family and friends and a man with a tremendous heart. I'll be a winner yet, by gum!

The stuff that is happening right now is stuff that's pretty good

Ever since I had the stomach flu three weeks ago, things have been on an uptick. There's just something about sitting on the can, voiding both one's bowels uncontrollably while simultaneously vomiting into the bathroom trash receptacle to really, I don't know, purge all the badness from one's person, both literally and metaphorically.

There was even a moment we could call religious, where, realizing I had but a moment to get back to bed before I was going to pass the fuck out, I wound up flopping, just barely, onto said bed, only to wake up I don't know how much later, face down in my blankets, legs half off and nearly touching the floor. Even in my sickly torpor, I laughed at the situation I was in, and crawled up to my pillows to fall back asleep. Three hours of this, about every twenty minutes to half an hour, and the worst of it was over, but it would be four days before applesauce, saltines, Sprite and bananas weren't 90% of my diet. I tried ravioli on the third day, it was a mistake.

I feel good. The weather seems to be, as of yesterday, in the mood to be more of a summery spring than a wintery one, and as can be expected, it's done wonders for the moods of everyone. I'm wearing a flimsy tank top today. I have a cardigan in my bag, but I don't need it. Praise Jesus.

I am continuing therapy, even though I am now feeling stable and content and like I can tackle shit without the bolstering effect of someone impartial to talk to. Mostly because, despite this stability, the problems are still there, in theory; I need to learn how to be better in a relationship. Less anxious. Less tense. Less nitpicky. And I need to learn that keeping some things to myself, in terms of the intensity of my feelings, can be kept to myself, for weeks, even months at a time, without it being "lying." This is the point we covered last session, and when my therapist laughed at me, I laughed too, and quite deflated in my chair. It's the simple realizations that cover the most ground, and it kind of floors me every time. Not being forthcoming about EVERY thing that I think doesn't mean I'm lying to someone. Bah.

This came about after I told my therapist about a friend who went on a date with a fellow she'd liked form afar for some time. Their date went very well, and basically from that moment, she was like, "He's the one, I'm done," but she didn't say that, for, I think, FOUR MONTHS. And now they're married. Had she said it in the first week, or first month, like I do, he probably would have freaked and ran. But she didn't. And she wasn't lying to him, she was smart, she kept it to herself, let him catch up to her. Why can't I do that? It's one of the many little things I do to sabotage my relationships. Every time. We came up with the obvious metaphor of letting things stew for the other person, letting them feel out the full flavors of me and the relationship before I dump the intensity of my feelings on them. DUH, really, Sarah. And in the meantime, I might find that my feelings are infatuation, or that I don't really like them all that much. But the way I do things, I dump out all that's in my head and expect the other party to be comfortable with that, and also put myself in a position to be overwhelmingly attached to them because of the word LOVE. But they never catch up, not to the level that I found from the beginning. Other women are smart. I need to be like them. A little mystery, girl.

In other news, celibacy and emotional distance are still the name of the game. I had a very handsome, charming, 6'5" college football coach hitting on me in a very adult and gentlemanly way at a literary event last week, but while the first meeting was purely charming, and mildly piqued my interest, when I ran into him at another lit event this weekend, it was determined that he has crazy eyes. Also, dad jeans. Dad jeans, unfortunately, are unforgivable at this stage in my life. I am too old to be teaching a man how to dress. Which is good, because the night I'd met him, and gave him my number after he asked, I woke up at 4 a.m. in a full blown panic and could only get to sleep after I convinced myself he'd never call. He did text the next day to say, adult and gentleman like, that it was a pleasure to have met me. And when I ran into him Saturday, something was off. His charm was now plasticine, his eyes a bit shifty. None of us who had borne witness to the charm four days prior could pinpoint what had changed, but the change was there, nonetheless. I am relieved. I am not ready to date, or even think about it, as is evidenced by my 4 a.m. wakeup in fucking heart pounding fear mode.

But I do have a pleasant, harmless crush that helps me pass the time. We play Words With Friends games and chat about Morrissey. He is too young, too slight of build, and too much the brother of a friend (and too much, again, living in another city), but it is so safe, I can use it as an experiment, and have been. Not a whisper of seal has been broken on the crush. Our talk is very vaguely flirtatious, but no admission of any attraction or interest has been broached in the least. I've never done this before. It's been a month, and I am proud. In fact, I sincerely doubt, when I see him again (given he lives in the city I'd like to relocate to in the fall), that I'll allow it to become anything else. Too young, too slight, too brother. I see those red flags, y'all, and they are not worth the trouble it would be to put another notch in my bedpost. Land sakes, might I wind up with a friend that I find attractive, who finds me attractive, that I never engage in physical activity with?

The mind reels.

Sweet Dreams

I haven't dreamed about Chris in a while. A couple of weeks, at least. Last night, my brain blessed me with three. I say blessed because each one was really, really nice. After I woke, I laid in bed for another half an hour in a liminal state, relishing warm sensations that happily stayed with me in waking and didn't dissolve into sadness that it was a reality that cannot and very likely will not ever again be attained.

The first was an easy 50/50 combination of an ad in a magazine that I saw yesterday, a couple, sitting on the edge of a sailboat or other sailing vessel, her in a stark white bikini, him sitting behind her, holding her tightly against him, plus one of my favorite Chris memories, which was the last time I was at his place in early January. I was reorganizing my suitcase, sitting on the floor in his bedroom, when a wave of sad came over me and I poutily said something to him (he was in the living room) about how I just felt like crying. He stopped whatever he was doing and basically came rushing in to wrap his long limbs around me (we are the man and woman version of the same body; long arms, long legs, short torso) from behind, sitting on the floor with me, and he just squeezed me, his arms wrapped around my stomach and chest, and I wept a little, and then started laughing, and then kissed him, and thanked him. I remember even in that moment, I thanked him for being him, that that was the kind of thing he would do, and that I loved him for it. Had he not been so sweet to do so, it's likely the sadness would have lingered for an hour or two. He was always good at diffusing those feelings.

So in the dream, I was wearing white cotton panties and a white bra, nothing else, and he squeezed me like that from behind. It was a reunion moment, and as he wistfully laughed into my ear and my body tingled at his touch, he said, "I missed about 70% of you." I thought that seemed a fair enough amount to miss.

The next dream found us in college, and I received a phone call from the Dr. Seuss Foundation (yes, my brain made up a foundation that carries out the continuing publication of children's stories in a similar vein as Seuss) asking me if I had any completed work or ideas that would fit into their publishing schematic, as they'd seen some of my other work (?) and thought I'd be good in their company. I hung up the phone (a landline, like I seriously was in college), and came slinking into the dorm room (which I apparently lived in alone, as there was a single queen sized bed in there, with a man in it). I leapt on top of the half-sleeping man (the sheets, the comforter, were all notably white, as my bra and panties had been white, and the room was full of sunshine), and told him what had happened through the comforter that was draped over his face. I mentioned the book I'd always wanted to write, based on the first story I ever wrote at the age of four, called Robbie the Hummingbird (true story, and Chris and I had talked about working on this together), and I snuzzled into his ear, through his long hair (it wasn't exactly *Chris* in the dream, he was somewhere between Chris and Andy), and said, "But I'll need an artist to do the book with me. And where, would I find someone like that? I don't know any artists!" and we both giggled and pulled back the covers and started kissing. I remember thinking that something was off, that I didn't know this man in my bed, that his features weren't quite right, that he didn't seem connected to me, nor I to him. And then the hair shortened, the nose became smaller, and it was Chris. We attacked one another with love freshly renewed, and my lord, it was the sweetest, most sensual kissing and touching (but not exactly sexual). It was the sort of making out where you somehow feel clean afterward and almost feel you might never need to bathe again.

The third dream, a lady I've met recently who must vaguely remind me of one of Chris's exes (the only one I actually have met, who is a friend of Lindsay's), was courting Chris. I found a notebook with her musings on this (again, notable whiteness in the paper), and I was a bit hurt. This dream is fuzzy at that point. I know I confronted her, and she apologized and said she didn't know how much I cared for Chris. There wasn't much resolution other than that.

Still, I woke up refreshed, and that liminal half hour was like a milk bath. Would that there was a goddamned thing I could do to facilitate any of that feeling between us again...

Hurts Donut

Some days are worse than others, and this has been the worst in two weeks. I hurt everywhere, my heart, my guts, even a dull ache that extends into my knees for some reason, that seems to be attached to emotion rather than a physical ailment.

Every few minutes I have to talk myself out of communicating with him in some way. Every few minutes I have to give myself a pep talk that I need to be patient. Some shift for the better is on the horizon, it can't get worse now, I just need to be calm, and patient, and think good thoughts and distract myself and...

not think about how much I love this person who doesn't want to be with me.

Andy Reflections

Earlier this week, I looked at old emails from Andy, after he'd broken up with me about two months into our relationship. The circumstances were different, he was conflicted between me and his ex of five years who wanted him back. He loved me, admitted it freely, and was florid about how he knew he was ruining a beautiful thing with he and I. But, he also stated, in very plain terms, that he was done with us. That he didn't want a relationship. Not with me, not with anyone, that he wanted time to figure himself out and become more stable.

This sent me into a tailspin, but, after I'd reached an operatic head (far, far more melodramatic and anxiety fueled than anything with Chris has been in this post-breakup scenario), and he asked me to stop talking to him, I did that, and I calmed down, found a parcel of peace on my own, and tried to make amends with the fact that it seemed he and I were not going to work out.

About three weeks later, we were back together. I look back on those emails, and on the blog posts I wrote here while this was happening, and there are more parallels than differences. I was just as convinced then as I am now that things won't work out in favor of a reunion with Chris. Perhaps even moreso, as there wasn't 1,729 miles between Andy and I. There was only a quick drive down 35W from NE Minneapolis to get to my home, where we talked, reconciled, made love, and he took me to Tuesdays with Toneski at the 501.

In the reconciliation, things were never easy with Andy. He was always uncertain about me, about us, about whether he wanted to be in a relationship at all. So the next nine and a half months with him were  consistently in turmoil. It was a lot of him trying to break up with me, me letting him go a little, him coming over to play Scrabble, us making love, reforging our bonds, and repeating the process over and over. It was a constant game of "Go Away, Come Here." It was never stable, it was rarely in a state of contentment. I was always trying to shoehorn functionality into something that wasn't ever going to find its stride.

Ironically, our most stable period was the two months right before we broke up. We were as happy as we'd been in the first couple months of our relationship, but our sex life was flagging. I know myself well enough to know that when I lose interest sexually, there is something very wrong in the relationship that I just haven't figured out yet. It took me about three weeks to realize what I had probably known, somewhere, all along. Andy never loved me as much as I loved him, and he never would. This would never end up being marriage, kids. He was about to apply to colleges to start a graduate program in poetry(!), and I knew I didn't want to be with him for that journey, and he didn't want me there. This was an obstacle we couldn't work our way around.

So, on the one year anniversary of our first date, September 6th, 2010, we had a planned breakup. We went to a Twins game, held hands, snuggled, went to dinner at a nice restaurant, shared a bottle of wine, had sparkling conversation and love and intimacy, and then I drove him home, we went to his room, talked for a bit, kissed, cried, and I left.

Looking back on the whole of our relationship, I see something I don't think I'd fight for, now. Looking at Chris and I, it's different, because he and I were much happier, and much more functional in our three months than Andy and I ever were. Andy was a good boyfriend, and I was a good girlfriend to him, but as great as my love was for him, I don't look back on it with any wistfulness. Chris and I connected in a way I hadn't ever known, and continued to, even in the worst of it, when I knew he was going to end things.

Yet, is that something that can be repaired? I feel very ill at ease with shoehorning anything with him. I don't want to fight against any current on a consistent basis. I want a relationship that works because the person I'm with is as in it with me as I am with them. And, the fact is, he gave up on us. The fact is, no matter what issues he had with me, with us, that led him to believe it wasn't something he wanted to work for, the fact is, he's the sort of person that gives up instead of solving the problem. I am not that kind of person. I thought our love was worth it. I still do. He was my partner in crime, truly, and it felt amazing, and I won't settle for anything less than that.

1,729 miles will prevent any hope of that. He won't decide this is a good idea, even if he wakes up one day and is filled, again, with love for me. The distance will always be enough of a problem for him that he will believe it can't work. And if that's what he believes, then it can't work. I was not at my best trying to hustle money to see him, or to pay partially to get him here. That was $1,000 a month just to travel to Portland or get him here. I was at my best while with him, in his arms, looking at him, realizing what was important and how much I loved him, but the distance makes it so those moments become foggy fast. Even with only three weeks between visits.

I am ambivalent. I want the love to fade, so I can move on. I also want him to call me and tell me, "What the hell. Let's see if this can't fly. Mind if I move in with you?"

On marriage and kids

The talk about marriage and kids came early. Before any I love you was uttered. And, though he was drunk and doesn't remember it, he was the first to say I love you, too. Or, at least, that he was "in love" with me.

I was sober, lying in bed, he texted that he was sad, and was going to get progressively more drunk. I called him, and we talked for what ended up being three hours, but felt like mere minutes. We told stories, I talked about things like how I find dimes in conspicuous places, when it seems like I'm on a particular path toward something, and I attribute them to my deceased grandfather, Dale. He asked if I'd found a dime the day I met him.

I had. In the middle of the bathroom rug at his sister's place, where I'd been staying. I remember picking it up, as I always do, and relishing its thin metallic feel, smiling softly to myself, wondering what the day had in store.

At some point in that conversation, the phrase, "I wouldn't be in love with you unless..."was spoken. It took my breath for a minute, and I almost said I love you to him, as I'd wanted to over and over in every conversation we'd been having the prior two and a half weeks. But, I knew he was drunk, and I knew it wasn't time. I knew, in the morning, he probably wouldn't remember he'd said that.

In that same conversation, a propos of nothing, he stated, "We need to get started on having kids early. I don't want to be an old dad." I laughed, and it scared me a little. Even though I'm comfortable with moving "fast," I am also accustomed to people feeling fast for me and it scaring them, so they project that fear onto me and tell me over and over that I'm moving too fast, yet ignore the fact that they're putting out exactly the same language and feeling that I am. It's unfair, and as of yet, I can't figure out a way to handle it. He asked me, at one point, if I didn't think that he and I were "eerily similar." It came via text, and honestly, I balked at the notion. I thought about the things I'd noticed already, that he could grow angry quickly, that he was horribly stubborn... and then realized I could say the same of myself. After, I started to tally up the ways in which we were similar, and it was true. He was me, with a penis. I started to tell people that when they asked me what he was like.

Chris, seemed so cutely sure of himself and his feelings (and it was only in that one conversation that he was drunk), even though he admitted it also scared him. He'd say things like, "If you can guess how many cavities I have, I'll marry you." The answer was 0. I guessed wrong. I wasn't saying anything like that. I'd talk about marriage, about kids, in the abstract, that I wanted to have them, that I wouldn't discount having them with him, but he was interviewing me. He was probing me for information, for things that compiled his list of what he wants in a wife, in the mother of his kids.

We were sitting at a restaurant, about to go for a walk along the Mississippi when he was here before Thanksgiving. He smiled at me, in the sunset light streaming through the windows and asked if I'd want family dinner every night. I told him of course, that that was the way I'd grown up and that's what I'd want for my family once I had one. He nodded. "Good. That's really important to me."

And there were the other times, like the moment when we were talking about pregnancy and how I wouldn't abort if I got pregnant because I'm 34 and it seems silly to me that I wouldn't keep it, even though my life isn't ready for a kid. I know I'd be able to figure things out pretty fast. But, I said, if I did find out that there was a major birth defect, or some terrible illness, I wouldn't hesitate to abort. He grinned, and high fived me. It was one of the many things that could have been a touchy subject, but was not. We were just on the same page.

He told me, too, when he was here, on a night where we went out dancing and I found that he was the first person I was involved with that I could actually dance with and I was elated, and he was elated, and he was adorably listing, in my ear, over the loud new wave and 80s hits, all the reasons he loves me, and he said something about marriage, and I laughed at him and asked him how long he needed to "know" about me, and without missing a beat, he said, "Six months."

I don't know where that kind of talk got lost. I don't where it was, or what happened that made him just give up on us. Because, as far as I can tell, as far as I remember, we never stopped being compatible. Even when we were fighting, we worked things out efficiently, and were able to look at one another with sincere love, affection, and respect. Something dark and significant happened in his head that took his heart from me, bit by bit, and he just let it happen. And I am just at a loss to understand it.

I've been in relationships where I thought about marriage and kids. I've talked about those relationships here. But none of those people thought the same of me. None of those people talked about our potential kids by name (I'd like to name a boy Ivan Jack), made jokes with me about having "witch twins" after passing street names Cremona and Bersota in Seattle, and none of them, certainly, drew a fucking picture of a girl he had a dream about that he decided was our daughter.

I'm Exhausting To Be With

That's what he told me.

"It's exhausting to be with you."

I could laugh it off, if I didn't know it was true, and if I hadn't already heard it a couple of times before. Never during the breakup conversation, the times before were during fights, in person, and I remember one instance where I got it turned around to wry smiles and romantic conversation. But this time, it had gravitas.

Chris is pathologically stubborn, and there are some things he says that you know aren't going to change for anything. Telling me I'm exhausting to be with felt like a death blow. I knew I wasn't coming back from that statement this time. And he doesn't like that I'm "better at arguing" than he is. He feels manipulated, like he thinks one thing at the beginning of a conversation, and at the end, I've convinced him otherwise, or at least, have put doubts in his head. That frustrates me, because I believe him to be my equal on every front, and while I may have my lawyering skills in play, he's no slouch at arguing, not by a long shot. Plus, he diffuses me more quickly than anyone, with pointed comments that I immediately acknowledge are true. In short, no one has argued with me as well as he does.

But, I understand why I'm exhausting. I exhaust myself. My life exhausts me. The combination of anxiety, observational skills, empathy, and self-awareness, plus a band to promote etc, a literary event to produce regularly, a job where I'm never really off the clock, and a circle of friends who've got their own mountains of stress make for a brain that's processing serious emotional quantities at all times. A lot of that doesn't just stay in my head, and it tends to pour out to my paramour. I vent, I process things verbally, and sometimes, I take out my stresses on them unfairly, in the form of nitpicking, and arguing, and judgmental observations.  Plus, my tack when feeling insecure is just to become nitpicky and argumentative; all I'm looking for is affection and reassurance, but it takes someone secure and happy with themselves to know and do that, and that is not Chris. He withdrew affection, or I became insecure, chicken before the egg, egg before the chicken, and that was where things started to go down hill. He is not someone who muscles through very well. He doesn't fight for things, he flees, though he is of very strong character, and he's pulled himself out of some serious muck in the past year, his instincts are still pretty safely on the side of flight. He's someone who decides he's done, and figures out how to cut and run. It's a defense mechanism, of course, and it's one I've got no resources against other than time. I'm pushy and I'm intense and I'm difficult to deal with. He is too, just as difficult with his stubbornness, his tendency to be negative and use black and white thinking, to seek solace in depression instead of pulling himself up and out of it. I was willing to work through these things. He was not willing to work with me. In fact, according to him, he has his "reasons" for breaking up with me, but they're "mean," so he's not going to tell me what they are.

This indicates to me that these are things he never even brought up to me, never gave me a chance to defend or change, that he views them as so intrinsic to my character, they were things he put under the umbrella of "love someone for who they are, not who you want them to be," and started to put his love for me out to pasture. And, I believe, that they must be things I am proud of, things I would perceive as "mean" if I were criticized on them. He said, that maybe once he becomes more comfortable with me as friends, he could maybe tell me what these things are. He doesn't seem to realize that, he's dropped a significant box of kittens on my head, here; I can't work through this breakup not knowing what these "mean" things are. As much as I work on pushing it out of my head and try not to obsess over it, it's still going to come back, over and over, the obsessing and fretting over what these "reasons" could be.

So this is all exhausting. If he'd just had a clear, rational conversation with me, instead of tallying up reasons to leave me, we might have had a chance. Despite the distance, despite the fact that we are both difficult people who will never have an easy relationship, despite ourselves. I think what we had in the first couple of months was an indication, to me, at least, of how good a relationship could be. He was my partner in crime. We discussed things rationally when there were things to discuss. We lifted one another up, we loved one another truly. And then, or so it seems to me, he just checked out. And I got insecure, and an ugliness set in.

I have the kind of life where, even if I'm sitting completely still, I am surrounded by a whorling mass of intense situations. Last week, while sitting in my living room, I watched a car hit my car head-on through my picture window. By the time I got outside, they'd done a u-turn and were driving off. That's in addition to the crane that hit my car while I was at an art gallery, whose insurance I'm contending with now. One of my good friends' mother committed suicide recently, and he's coming to me to help him with that. Another's mother and father-in-law are both gravely ill, only three months after one of their sons had drank himself to death. A member of my band is experiencing serious health issues.

Chris implored me, last week, to talk to my friends. That I couldn't keep coming to him because I was hurting from this breakup, because he's the one that broke up with me. He asked me to stop contacting him, for the time being. A perfectly fair, and correct assessment, but all those things above are what I'm contending with in my day-to-day life, and those things are why I often have a very difficult time being vulnerable with my friends. Many of my friends have it much worse than me, and I'm realizing, a lot of my "close" friends, particularly in Minneapolis, are more drinking buddies than anything. Quite a few of my truly "close" friends have moved in the past couple of years. To Portland. To Chicago. To New Orleans. To San Francisco. My emotional ties to this city are dissipating, and it's depressing me. I've wanted to leave for a long time, at least for the winters, but literally feeling less and less desire to be here because of the people around me wasn't something I'd expected to happen.

So, I don't have a lot of people I feel comfortable reaching out to right now. Additionally, one of the people I normally discuss my relationship woes with is Chris's sister. I realize they are close and that this is a huge conflict for her to be in the middle of, but it's a point of fact that neither of them seem to acknowledge.

My life is experiencing significant shifts. With therapy, I will make yet another shift toward being better at living. With others, with myself. Employment shifts are on the horizon; I'm reducing hours at the job I loathe as of March 1st, and I'm going to make the leap toward jewelry design, in the hopes it can at least provide half my income per month. I'm considering moving from the apartment I love more than any other living space I've been in, in order to be more in the thick of things in Uptown. This would mean less space for me and four cats, no more porches and fenced in backyard, no more giant perfect kitchen and dining room and ten foot ceilings, but it would also mean fewer cab rides and more biking and walking now that my car is completely totaled. So that would happen as of May 1st, when my lease is up.

I don't know. Like I said, I exhaust me. I feel like I never get a break. Not from the drama of everyone's lives around me, not from things that happen to me without my consent, not from heartache. Some of that is what I'm putting out in the world, and I can work on that. A lot of it, though, I know to be just the way my life is, and will be. So perhaps acceptance is something I need to work on, too, instead of fighting the cars of the world who want to careen into my car...

Electrified & Soothed

Chris is the brother of a good friend, Lindsay. She may end up reading this; I'm not sure this blog would come up on her radar anymore. She'd told me, a year and a half ago, when I was on a layover in Chicago on a bus trip to New Orleans, complaining about how there's no one in Minneapolis for me, that her brother and I would be perfect together. I pooh-poohed the idea, but she suggested I friend him on fb and just try to get to know him, be his friend. And I did that. I'd known he was a gifted artist for years, through my friendship with her, and her many postings of his art sales and the like, but that was about all I knew. And I didn't glean much more from his fb page. I flipped through his photos and thought he looked like someone I could be friends with, but wasn't the least bit attracted to him.

This past fall, I went to Portland, where both brother and sister live, to see her (and several other friends in the Pacific NW). He'd written on fb about how he was finally going to meet me, before I left Minneapolis. I responded, "As if." I don't remember why I said that, but it became our first in-joke.

In-jokes are something, it would turn out, that we were very adept at creating, which makes this all the harder, what with so many easy references and riffs to be made to our private stock of jokes.

The night before I left, all my Portland friends gathered at a bar, and I finally met Chris in person. Lindsay had told me that he'd lost a bunch of weight, had started working out, going to therapy, and in general had decided to pull himself together in the past year, as he'd spent a good long while pretty depressed.

So, Lindsay and I met up with him, at his place, and I was excited to meet my casual friend in the flesh. He opened the door, and sincerely, I felt like the kindest, most soothing, loving, lung-full of air was put in me. I looked him up and down, and was instantly in like with every thing I saw, plus the timbre of his voice, deep and thoughtful, but with a certain mischievousness.  I thought the words, "Electrified and soothed." I asked him to hug me, to commemorate this, our first meeting, and the hug was exactly as warm as I'd hoped it would be.

The rest of the night, I kept watching him, listening to him, waiting for a red flag or something that would indicate it was a bad idea to pursue this. Lindsay kept half-joking about finding someone for me to sleep with that night, pointing out dudes she thought I might like. There was slim pickings, and, in general, it had been months since anyone caught my eye. I can't say anyone had ever caught my eye like Chris did. I just kept coyly eyeing him, feeling embarrassed we were having this conversation about getting me laid by a bar patron in front, and with him. I knew I wanted him. I just wasn't sure, yet, that it would happen.

We changed tables, and he wound up sitting next to me. I remember thinking, "Even if this is all that happens, being near him feels so nice..."

We were both drinking Tecate, mine with a shot of Powers whiskey, his with tequila. I looked for excuses to touch him. I touched his arm, for some reason, and again, I just felt electric.

After a while, some friends left, and we opted to move on to a karaoke bar. Again, Chris sat next to me, and I realized that it was going to happen. Our thighs touched one another under the table, and he intoned, "You can put your hand on my leg if you want to."

I was embarrassed, a little, that he would call me out like that, but I did as was suggested. Soon, we were kissing, in front of Lindsay and our friends. I immediately thought it was the best kissing I'd ever had, and I've smooched on probably 150 people over the years (my numbers of other activities are significantly lower; I just like to smooch). We instantly had a physical connection, no adaptations necessary.

And this translated, too, to sex, even though we were both quite drunk and probably not at our best.

We woke in the morning, and, even now, I look back on the couple of hours we spent in bed with a sort of awe. The cadence of our communication could have populated an award-winning rom-com, and was of the kind that usually takes a while to find with another person. We spoke to one another in Russian and French accents, making up characters with one another, rapid-fire, laughing heartily the whole while, kissing the whole while. I told him I was going to take a chunk of his rib meat with me to make a clone. We decided the clone would end up like the dumb Michael Keaton clone in Multiplicity, who keeps pizza in his back pocket. We decided he would only eat junk food, namely Cheetos, and his favorite show would be Ice Road Truckers. We decided he never engaged in foreplay, but always expected me to give him blow jobs, and my tits would always have orange fingerprints after sex from his Cheetos hands (Chris would write, a couple weeks later, a wonderful story about my conjuring of, and relationship with this clone).

We got out of bed and we showered and couldn't stop kissing, with a base need to continue kissing, hungry for one another.

He took me back to his sister's place, where my things and my rental car were, so I could pack up and take the rental back to Seattle, where I would get back on a bus to Minneapolis. I remember packing, half-listening to Chris and Lindsay's conversation that couldn't yet be about how he felt about me, and if I recall, was focused on Lindsay getting a burrito, and again, I thought, "If this is all it's going to be, that's enough..."

He carried my suitcase to the car, and I drove him back to his place. I wasn't going to say anything about a future visit, or keeping in touch. I had accepted that, rationally, this could only be a one time thing.

But then he said it, "So, should we exchange numbers then?" And I smiled. And we did.

I watched him walk back into his house, appreciating every line of his beautiful form, and felt just about as happy as I could remember in years.

In the car, driving to Seattle, I kept focused on the road, and not on who would be the first to text who.

It was him. I don't remember what it was, but it was him. From that moment on, we'd hardly be out of communication 'til about three weeks ago.

I'd like to say my heart isn't broken, but this feels more real, crystalline, than other breakups. There's nothing to be done. It's just over.

Breakups & Therapy

It's been almost two years since I've written anything here, but I need some covert(ish) writing therapy.

And, just plain therapy.

I started it up again, three weeks ago. After my now ex boyfriend told me he thought I needed it, with that condescending, needly-voiced tone that speaks of frustration and, unfortunately, projection. I'd told him he needed to keep seeing his therapist, even though he can't afford it, so that's what he came back at me with.

And we're both right. We both need therapy. We're two fucking assholes in our mid-30s who, despite having quite possibly the best relationship either of us had known, just fucked it up. Within three months.

I'm learning things, already, in therapy. Two notable things came out of my session on Friday; I have trouble with grey areas, and I'm always right.

The latter is a bigger ball of kittens than I can process right now, but the former thing, that's pretty simple to acknowledge. The problem is executing a better way of dealing with the grey areas.

And what do I mean by grey areas? Well, that it's very difficult for me to wrap my head around statements, in a relationship, like, "I need space," or dealing with the concept of someone moving, emotionally, at a different pace than me. Because, I think, of my chronic anxiety, I've maladapted to an expectation of timeframes and status reports, asking, in general, for people to give me concrete quantities of time so that I can process what I'm dealing with. I can't expect people to know how much space/time they need. I can't expect people to process their emotions and come to a conclusion as quickly as I can.

Like a lot of things in therapy that end up being the most helpful, these two things are simple things to see in my day to day life. Unfortunately, getting better at handling them is not going to be the easiest thing when I've got no relationship to work with, and my therapist agrees. But, he is determined to help me, and he is kind and he is not afraid to tell me the reality of things.

This is gonna be a several parter, I think, so I'll end this one here.

The Most Dangerous Game

In 1997, Conor Shenk introduced me to Japanese Rock.
In 1998, I found Renaud Martin in a Japanese Rock chat room, in a discussion about the Cure.
Renaud Martin introduced me to Clan of Xymox, The Legendary Pink Dots, and Einsürzende Neubauten.
In 1999, I read Venus in Furs.
In 2001, I went to see a band called Venus in Furs, in Fargo. I fell instantly for Tom Haugen, a member of the band, and gave him my phone number. A couple of days later, he called, and amongst other conversation topics, he asked me to tell him about the posters on my wall. One, of Nick Cave, sparked the query, "Is he smoking? Is he handsome?" (the answer being yes, to both) which remains a favourite quote to this day (another great one of Tom's, out of context: "Thanks for the pants news!")
Tom introduced me to 16 Horsepower, to the New Yorker, to ecstasy, and deepened my interest in Tom Waits. We shared a love of Einstürzende Neubauten, of literature, of arguing--he was the first to accuse me of arguing in "lawyer speak". He was a terrible, and incredible boyfriend. Passionate, literate, astoundingly beautiful in vocabulary, both in conversation and writing ("Your scent lingers to function as an invisible periapt, I never wish it to disseminate." He also wrote the phrase which seems to continue to curse me, "You emanate permanence, a permanence I have brazenly taken for granted.") He was also a petulant addict who I was fairly positive would end up dead one way or another before his 21st birthday (he was 19 at the time). He has since proved me wrong, and continues to be a close friend, recently giving me yet another couple of quotes for the book; "You're the perfect woman, though I would prefer you were a little more domesticated," and "You're autonomous as fuck."

In my head, this is an example of the timeline of my development. When I seek to remember dates, events of import, places I've been, I rifle through the catalog in my brain, and this is how the continuum is set up, and it is largely based around people I've been involved with romantically. Yesterday, I was accused of having my identity being completely tied up in my relationships, or more to the point, identifying myself solely through these relationships. There is truth to this, and it makes me feel defensive, so I find myself writing this here in order to sort out the facts. Mostly, I find that while it may not be the conventional way to store information, there's also nothing unhealthy about it. I'm not identifying myself through these relationships as much as I'm noting how one event/symbol/life lesson feeds into the next, and that, frankly, I'm a terrific romantic in all areas of my life, behaving very religiously toward all things I find dear. I don't discard any memory, and I take life's winding road and all the treasures along its way very, very seriously in regard to that. What is more serious than love? Were it not so serious, the great canon of word and song would be reduced to a mere trifle.

June 2010, I met Jorge Castro. As we ordered our respective whiskeys, moments after meeting (I saw him at a party across the street, waggled my finger at him for being a man who trims his glorious chest hair, then told him he was to come to the Herkimer to have a drink with me), we found out we shared a birthday (though he's three years my junior).
Jorge's half-Mexican, muscular, hairy looks paired with his drunk, tattooed, stoner ways were made only more impossibly attractive to me with a gentle North Carolinian twang in his voice. Already a year and a half deep into one serious bender post-Dan Kane heartbreak, I jumped headlong into even more chaos revelry with Jorge, made all the worse by the fact that despite him only being interested in getting laid, he was also a kind gentleman (Southern breeding will do that to you), so the bond had some knotty ties I had considerable difficulties disentangling myself from--a fact those of you following these writings will recall as the point this blog started from, excepting a one-off blog in the 2007 Dan-times. One such bond with Jorge had me immersing myself full-time in Kings of Leon, who made me feel a closeness to the things Jorge had to offer but wasn't offering me, without being as obsessive as I really was toward him at the time. Tattooed, chaotic, hairy southern boys who drink too much = a downright Pavlovian response. Somewhere in this, catching Sex on Fire or Use Somebody on the radio at least three times a day, in this summer of Leon, I consciously decided to seek out a lad who looked like Nathan Followill. And lo, not even a week after this, in the middle of August, 2010, there was Andy.

So, Andy, if I didn't think this way, if things were not catalogued on this romantic continuum, where one experience feeds into the next, almost seamlessly, and most definitely beautifully, I more than likely would not have stared at you for two and a half hours, so frightened by your beauty my normally forward, cocky self could find no footing. I would not have seen you again two weeks later (because I wouldn't have noticed you two weeks before), and I would not have drank enough Canadian to bolster my faltering ego, I would not have allowed myself to just jump in with you and really let a series of failsafes falter.

And if those things hadn't happened, I wouldn't have now learned that a feeling of cosmic certainty must not mean shit, nor would I have spent a year hoping you'd just chill the fuck out and allow yourself to love me the way I know you can instead of whine about the terror of having someone love you that knows you're the one, and I certainly wouldn't be listening to Kings of Leon right now, a sweet feeling of bitter irony in my gut.

I love(d) you as best I could, and you failed me, and failed us over and over again in your entitled (yes, there's that word again) way, in your stupid belief that an emotionally, intellectually fulfilling relationship that functions happily is best kicked to the curb because you are incapable of looking at what you have in any real way, choosing instead to focus on the deficits. You are truly playing a very dangerous game with love, with me, and the simple fact that you'd do this, still in love with me, still wanting to do things with me, to enjoy things that we enjoy, but feeling you somehow deserve more, that there's some reality out there, outside of us... Well, fuck you.

Fuck you.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Sock It To me.

I'm getting older. This becomes apparent not very much in my form--thankfully, I'm sporting a hotter body than ever (albeit slightly squishified in the midsection compared to last summer, but once I get the punching bag up in the garage it'll only take a few sessions to be bikini-ready again) and I am always assumed to be about 24 years of age. These things are highly agreeable in the aging department. No, how I feel mildly offended by men I don't know speaking coarsely or just using overtly blue language with me before they know a single thing about me. Specifically, this comes working at a bar; approaching a table full of half-drunk men in their 20s who are dropping f-bombs more than any other word, I want to admonish them soundly for their language in front of a lady before I ask them what sort of domestic swill they'd like to ingest. But would it make any sense to them? I'm feeling that the understanding of this is rapidly slipping in those currently younger than 25.

Who would have ever thought that once a gal reached a certain age, she'd want respect. The curious thing is, outside of those brash f-bomb dropping men, I'm getting it. This may be the most telltale sign of all regarding my aging. It's not that anyone calls me ma'am now, but that a certain level of courteousness has crept into my social interactions. And maybe it is just as much me, my personality, as it is my age; I feel now I no longer need to apologise for my actions, I do what I wish, and I will not be repentant (this comes also with an inherent lack of doing things I should need to feel apologetic for, of course). My tolerance for putting up with other people's day-to-day bullshit is at a low. It all feels a little chicken or the egg. I am still the brassy, mostly unfiltered woman those who know me (hopefully) love, but somehow, in the growing pains of the last two years, a distillation process has also occured which finds me getting what I want from people with minimal fuss (and also finds me offering compromises with minimal fuss).

And these last two years, well, that is perhaps another thing. It's only become clear to me the past three or four months what it's been about. A chain of events put me into a chaos spiral which was ultimately incredibly beneficial, but lost in the whorl of it, it was hard to see a way out. A failed relationship, loving, tender, flawed, came to a necessary end spring of 2008. Hindsight shows me that up until approximately five months into my current loving, tender, flawed relationship, I was battling with the fallout of that failure two years ago. A two year bender came in its wake, both Liquor and Dick. Couldn't really get enough of either, and neither (or none) of it was right. I met Andy and still none of it was right, despite Little Brain Voice telling me it was. I was ready to be done with the bender, but a little more chaos was in store. I think once I reached the point of complete financial ruin, it all became clear: This Is Not What I Want. Of course, I'm a long way off from realising anything I do want, but it feels like I am making strides toward where those things exist. I'm making enough money right now to have myself almost debt free by 2012 (just in time for the apocalypse, wherein debt will not matter, hee haw). The student loans will remain, to the tune of about $5,000, hopefully down from their current standing of nearly $15,000. I'll have paid off my credit cards, my car, all outstanding small debts owed friends and the like. Once the student loans are paid, that frees up almost $700/month which can go toward a downpayment on a house. Or a lengthy move to Tennessee. Or both. Things with Andy continue to be difficult, but I know he's the one for me. It's odd to be in a relationship that's toeing it's strongest period more than 10 months in.

All things are always in flux, but it does feel that a future I want is on the horizon.

"I want the heavy fork..."

Something kind of magickal happened the other night with Andy. See, I was tired. Hella exhausted. Speaking softly, unable to muster volume, and words were escaping me. He'd come over to my place and was making us dinner, a lovely couscous with fresh asparagus, ramps and morel mushrooms; a spring vegetable heaven. He'd put out the plates and had just finished pouring the vinaigrette over the salad (vinaigrette: olive oil, balsamic vinegar, dill, shallots, stone ground mustard and honey--his papa's honey at that). I mumbled to him that I wanted "the heavy fork" and that it was in the dishwasher. He pulled open the door, and within seconds pulled out the right fork.

He pays attention. He knows these things, and he knows that I'm very particular about what things I eat and drink with, so he'll ask if I have a preference of coffee mug, or salad bowl, and it's without any chiding or condescension about how silly it really is. He knows what the heavy fork is. He loves me.

Get A Land Line.

Something is slipping in me. Slipping rapidly. I am depressed. I am unhappy. But it is more than that. I feel it's the foundation I stand on. It is the use of a cell phone. It is the internet. It is living without feeling the sunshine daily. It's money. It's the boyfriend and the understanding that we are likely not long for this world as a union (but we are trying, my god, are we trying).

This panic is bestial.

I (we, everyone) are not meant to live this way.

I've ended internet on my phone. I've stopped getting Twitters via my phone. I will end text messaging on my phone next week. Then I will get a land line. One step at a time, folks.

And somehow I need to get money rolling in. Fast.

Therapy, it turns out, is therapeutic.

This morning I was feeling solidly fucked up. 30 Rock viewing did not help me, as even the slightest similarity to my current situation is liable to give me false hope which is subsequently dashed by the vagaries and whims of television writing, which then causes some kind of fissure in any semblance of rational thought I have put together for myself, made of tenuous, fragile bonds.

It doesn't help, either, that practically everything is somehow related to Andy. He'd become so completely, comfortably enmeshed in my life so quickly, and then just as quickly, completely ripped from it. It's been almost a month now. A whole, sad, month.

And so, I walked to therapy today, which I've been excited about for the past few days, which, having been in and out of therapy for the last 20 years, I am fully aware of how beneficial a session can be, but I cried as I walked, somehow still able to be sad despite the Lady GaGa thumping in my ears.

And I cried in my session, with a perfect stranger. Three times. I saw my previous therapist, Monica, for about four months and didn't cry once. The eyes welled up, but no actual loss of saline was made. Monica pointed out numerous times that I seemed to be detached from the tales and problems in my life, that I could talk about very emotional situations and express no emotion about them at all. Which was curious, since I was genuinely feeling emotion, and I wasn't the least bit uncomfortable with her; I was, somehow, detached, though. But not today! No, the waterworks flowed with ease. I went from feeling borderline hysterical, considering rushing over to Andy's today so I could see him, to feeling quite calm and centered, considering.

I like this new girl. She seems to be of similar demeanor to Monica, but Katie is a touch younger, prettier, and she's got a sense of humour. Monica wasn't a wet blanket, but she was also not the sort of gal that I'd ever go out and have a glass of wine with. Which was what I liked about her. She was completely non-judgemental, honest, even blunt with me. Katie's a bit more laid back. She dropped an F-bomb at one point, which I respected. And she laughed at my jokes.

I told her how I'd never cried with Monica, and how Monica had pointed out my detachment. I feel it's Andy that's changed this. I became better with Andy. The best version of myself. I need to get back to that, without Andy. And I think I can. Deciding against Drunk, Slutty Sarah, against casual smooches, against heavy drinking at all, that's a huge step. As is the realisation that I need to begin putting myself in the position to be ready for marriage and a child. I'm two, three years away from that, and that's if I pull it together as of yesterday and make dramatic life changes. Maybe Andy doesn't fit into this plan in the greater sense, but he's certainly been the catalyst for it.

Why do my hands smell like meat?

All The Things She Said, Running Through My Head.

Could the internal monologue just shut up?

blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

And then I'm crying, sobbing, in my car with my head against the steering wheel.

What do you do to get over the best thing that's ever happened to you? What do you do when the person who seemed to have read the manual on how to love you, make you laugh, talk to you, be there for you just up and runs? How can you move on from that?

Everything in the opposite sex pales in comparison. I lose myself for a few hours in the Gilmore Girls and swooning over Milo Ventimiglia and then it's all stabby stab in my heart because he's not the face I could or want to wake up to every morning, which is to say nothing of the general populace, who actually make me feel without hope. Andy came into my life and it was a god damn pop song. Halo, by Beyoncé, to be exact. My walls came crumbling down. I let him in without any hesitation.

But no, it didn't last.

And so, when a 23 year old texts me some nasty things after he's been out with me and I've been a bit coquettish and something of a tease and the texts go on about wanting me wrapped around his cock and how someday, he's happily going to listen to me scream, yes, I get turned on, and yes, I imagine him touching me and yes, I rub one out and it's perfectly sexy, but then it just turns terribly sour and I'm feeling ill in the morning (just like when this charming child and I kissed two weeks prior), and the VERY SIMPLE FACT is that the only person I have any interest in is Andy. I can't just fuck someone anymore, no matter how dirty they talk to me. I never was very good at it to begin with, I don't fuck to fuck, I fuck to feel, and what I want to feel when I'm fucking is LOVE.

And my god, Andy loved to fuck me and I loved to fuck him and he made me feel amazing, like the sexiest woman to ever cross his path, and he touched me better than anyone ever has, and he cared, he cared to make me happy, not only in bed but in every way, and now it's been almost two weeks since I've heard a single word from him and it's not okay. I'm not okay.

I found one of his hair ties on my desk last night, and it's been a rapid degradation ever since, I have it wrapped around my fingers, I slept with it last night.

Hence, head against the steering wheel, sobbing about half an hour ago.

And I found a band I love. Liars. Oh, how I've taken to them, like Dirty Projectors a couple of weeks ago, and what do I do? Andy, Andy, Andy, you're the one I want to gleefully present this music to, to talk about it, and maybe you've heard them already and have an opinion to present, and maybe, like we often do with music, we will have completely different ways of appreciating it, philosophising it, and then there'd be laughter and kisses and love making and sleep.

I love you Andy and god damn it, I just don't think that's going to change. In fact, distance, this time, instead of bringing me to a point where I can breathe and pull away from you, is in fact, making the heart grow fonder. I can breathe better now that I'm not in a constant panic spiral, and I'm thankful for the realisations I've had (that I want you, that I'm bored with Drunk, Slutty Sarah), but I want it to be over now. I miss you. I remember the few annoying tics you have with ardor now. I want to kiss every square inch of you and read books and make dinner and go for walks where I complain about how cold it is and you smoke your cigarette, always blowing the smoke straight up, away from me because you're sweet and polite like that, and you make fun of me because I'm cold, and I want to sip whiskey with you, and get into arguments that make me realise I'm being an ass. I want to love you, actively.

I never needed you, I never felt panicked about you. Do you realise how different that is for me? And I know I was different for you, too. I made you feel strong, like a man.

But baby, you let the chaos win, and it scares the hell out of me.

Chad.

On Wednesday, I went to the airport to pick up Chad. I don't talk about Chad enough. I don't give Chad enough credit. Every now and again, I mention Chad to people, and they look back blankly. "Who's Chad?" Who's Chad. hm.

Chad will be my Dude of Honour if I ever get married, and this is why: On Wednesday, in the first five minutes riding to my place from the airport, Chad boiled down the Andy situation in a manner that pulled me back from the ledge, soothed me, and gave me hope all at once. When Chad and I have conversations, I always feel that my heart has opened up and positivity, energy and love have crawled into spaces that had previously been dark. And maybe most tellingly, despite Chad and I being very attractive, interesting, exciting, sexually potent people, we've never been interested in one another. After fifteen years, unlike a single other male in my life that meets that criteria, we remain, simply, 100% friends.

After detailing the nutshell version of the Sarah Andy saga, Chad put a spin on it no one else has. My friends, lovely people that they are, can be jaded, bitter, and distrustful of those around them, and often do not take what a person has to say at face value, looking for the lie in everything. Some of the people I've looked to for comfort and support the past year have in fact done the opposite by inspiring fear and paranoia in me, by tearing down the person I love in the hopes that it will make me feel better. It doesn't. Chad, on the other hand, immediately identified with Andy's struggle, and felt, emotionally, that Andy must be quite like him. I was terrifically amused by this because on my first date with Andy, I commented (or maybe just made note to myself, I'm hazy on that) on how Andy's hand gestures reminded me of my friend Chad, and then once I came to know Andy, I found his emotional spikes and fluttery way of panicking and letting things get out of control to be reminiscent of a young Chad as well. And while that emotional opera still exists within Chad, he's harnessed it, and he's settled into a beautiful life in Portland with his wife Junie and their two gorgeous children Ariana and Jarvi.

What Chad had to say about Andy's actions took all of my anger away. Instantly. As I rambled about how angry this all makes me, how it's unfair and how it's unecessary, Chad stilled me by saying, "Sarah, be angry if you want, but I think what Andy's doing is brave. He sees what he has to do, and knows he has to do it without your needs or influence getting in the way, knowing that in the process, he might lose you." This, and a few other well-put observations just took the piss right out of me.

So now it's been six days, almost, since I've had any contact with Andy. I want to text him, to say I miss him. But I don't want to disturb whatever bubble he's made for himself the past few days and I don't want to do that to myself either; no response would be upsetting, but a reply of "I'm sorry, but I don't feel the same way" would bring immeasurable ruin to the current state of my mind palace. No, best to just let things alone. I don't see myself contacting him at all, frankly. Even a month from now, any rejection would set back my emotional progress by weeks. I'm now in the position of pointedly avoiding bars or events he might be at. I hate this phase.

God, is it really the end? Please, no. I've done terrible things to people over the years, and I believe in karma, and I believe my romantic troubles the past five years are an atonement for all of the wrong I did before. But I'm not that girl anymore. I'm not. A little peace, in a time of war, Universe. Please.

Chad and I sat by the river in Montevideo and chatted whilst drinking chai tea. He says I've taught him more about the female mind than anyone else has. It makes me chuckle to hear this, since he's been with me for the bulk of the development of my female mind. He has born witness to nearly all the phases of me which were important as a woman coming of age. He's been through the giddiness and love and heartache brought on by probably one hundred boys over these years. Which made it particularly telling when he said this:

"You talk about Andy differently than anyone else."

I know Chad. I know.

R.I.P. Drunk, Slutty Sarah

This is the time of day I miss him most. About two hours after sundown, until about midnight. The time, if things were not as they are, that we'd likely be making dinner, drinking tea, having kisses, embraces, flopped on a couch, lazing on a bed, listening to music, reading books, gabbing about music and books and pop culture and the lives we live and want to live and the people we love and have loved. It would be nice. It would be cozy. It would be the life I want to live. But, this is not the life I am living. Well, I am, but it is without him. Without Andy.

It has been five days, two hours and eight minutes since I last contacted him. Obviously, since I know this to the minute, it has not been easy, and the time has moved with something of the quality of sludge. But he asked this of me, and it's necessary. The level of drama was driving him insane and he couldn't sustain it any longer. I don't blame him, nor do I disagree with him. After this request and the subsequent indignation/fear of losing him that completely sent me into a fever pitch/tailspin/feedback loop of my own--while at work which actually makes it much easier to manage as I've got something physical to focus on and thus cannot curl into the fetal position and give into the feeling as I would likely do were I not at work--a very clear voice in my brainpan gave me what I recognised as my only two options, of which only one was viable: 1.) Continue falling apart, letting the beams holding me together and all the work I've done the past year to be better at this than this just crumble to nothing, refuse to stop contacting him, allow sheer panic to make me behave like an idiot, driving him further and further away, or 2.) Calm the fuck down and just let the boy go because I HAVE NO OTHER CHOICE.

I chose number 2.

And my lord, I'm a good decision maker. Seems I couldn't sustain the drama any longer either. The nausea is gone. I can drink coffee again without the caffeine making my heart thump directly out of my chest. Hell, my heart isn't even trying a little bit to thump out of my chest, it actually appears to be in a resting state! I mean, there are little spikes of fear, but mostly, I feel good, I'm no longer feeling like a crazy person, and logic has found a roost once again.

Other realisations come to based on my fruit loop actions the past two weeks: 1.) I don't give a fuck about either of the residual crushes/loves that were doing a bit of haunting me while with Andy. The first showed up at the bar the night of my previous blog. He started texting me at 4 a.m. about how we should talk. The next day, we "talked" via text, as that's really the only way he knows how to communicate with any profusion and even at that he's terrifically poor as nearly every emotion he manifests is somewhere along the rage-fear continuum. He wanted to apologise for accusing me of raping him, isn't that nice? You see, he'd felt "trapped" before, and that seemed a truly logical way of pushing me out of his life and so he's sorry! It was just a whoopsie. He also made horrifically disparaging remarks about the girl he was supposedly in love with while he and I were "friends", and claimed that she'd made him a misogynist. Of course, he always was. But... turns out I didn't really give a shit about any of this. Sure, I appreciate the apology, however weak it is, but mostly I didn't care to engage him in my life, felt no pangs of anything other than knowledge of the past and indifference. Huh. And here I thought I'd be stuck with that one for another five years before I muddled through it completely.

The other one, the Mexican Who Don't Want Me, well, he popped back up on my facebook friends last week. After I'd deleted him a month ago. How this internet chicanery went down I do not know, but it was as if the Universe had decided to say, "Hey, are you sure? You think maybe you wanna write him a 'Are you sure you don't wanna fuck me?' letter? Or perhaps something brief and witty about how you'd deleted him but hey, there he was again, what an amusing thing!?!? I mean, we have the same birthday, so probably there's some kind of cosmic alliance, right?" Nope. There was confusion and mild revulsion. Delete button pressed again, this time, hopefully, for good.

2.) In the same vein as the Mexican Who Don't Want Me, the Universe also put a tiny, baby crush dating back to August in my path again. I, shitfaced Drunk, Slutty Sarah, smooched on him and it was lovely and all and he and I made plans to canoodle and fuck about in the near future. Except the next day I just felt like puking (a combination of the act and the liquor, but psychologically, the act). And I went over to Andy's that night to drop off some things I had for him, distraught, not wanting to see him as I knew my then-tenuous equilibrium would be smashed, but he insinuated we should talk, so we did, and lo, equilibrium decimation, with a mother fucking boulder, anvil, Mack truck, a dumpster and a small handful of metaphorical coffee beans.

Andy misses me! Andy's uncertain about his decision!

FUCK.

My brain does some serious spiraling out of control and by the next night, I'm texting him about how he's robbed me, how he's shitting on love, and mostly, how it was completely fucking UNFAIR of him to say that to me without having any intention of acting on it. My panicked rage via text, email and phone call onslaught led to last Tuesday's request that I just leave him alone. Which, as previously stated, I have done, and it's been good.

Anyway. This brings me to 3.) I have zero interest in being Drunk, Slutty Sarah anymore. I reverted to her last week, and despite being greeted with applause by everyone who has been lonely without me during the past couple dating Andy months, I find she really fucking sucks. She has to sleep 'til 2 to get over the bulk of the drunk, and then she feels like shit the whole god damned day. She acts without thinking, she speaks without thinking, she is a lot of fun to be around, but she is not who I want to be. Not anymore.

Which, while with Andy, I lamented her passing. Was uncertain I was ready to throw in the towel on her. Felt a little trapped not being her.

Turns out she's quite the bore to be anymore. Not interested.

All of this information just comes back to the same spot.

I'm in love with Andy. I am comfortable with Andy.

I hope like hell his path brings him to the conclusion of the same toward me. And if he doesn't, then I've made some solid progress on myself that I will continue to build upon. I'm starting therapy again. Something has rattled loose these past couple weeks, and while I could parse it out myself, I'm certain an impartial party can only be beneficial.

It's all good, it's all growth. And little of it would have happened if Andy and I had remained together, awkwardly dealing with separate but equal panics.

/end blog